


home is where the heart is

by justepicstreetwolf



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Fluff, Foster Care, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Conditions, Past Child Abuse, i think i gave graham anxiety, tecteun's a+ parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 44,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25388899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justepicstreetwolf/pseuds/justepicstreetwolf
Summary: There is no parenting book that covers 'My foster daughter is protesting the unfairness of not having a Spice Girls lunchbox even though she wanted a Pokemon one before she started school.'Graham doesn't mind that.He would really appreciate one that covers 'My foster daughter hates doctors appointments because of her mother's treatment but that doesn't stop her from having a serious heart condition.'
Relationships: Grace O'Brien/Graham O'Brien, Thirteenth Doctor & Graham O'Brien
Comments: 497
Kudos: 191





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okie dokie so character glossary  
> jemma smith is thirteenth doctor. she is 5 years old in reception  
> rhys carver is tenth doctor he is 10. josh carver is eleventh doctor he is 11. they are brothers and go to the same school as jemma  
> tommy hughes is ninth doctor he is 9. he goes to a different primary school but is in rhys' year group  
> alexander campbell is twelfth doctor he is 12. he goes to the local secondary
> 
> the mastersons are the 3 revival series masters  
> oscar is dhawan master. harold is simm master. melissa is gomez master.
> 
> as far as i remember other characters from canon may make cameos but will have same names

“What?” the little face sat in front of him cried, her face scrunched up in confusion and her jaw dropped in horror. Graham’s heart grew heavy as he pulled the pan out of the cooker. “But you can’t! I was gonna be Mary!” 

Jemma Smith was Graham’s fifth foster child and, like his others, had complex problems and an impressive ability to worm their way into his heart. She might have had a different gender to his other kids but it didn’t stop her giving him, if anything, more problems than the others combined. He didn’t particularly mind how she and the boy next door had a feud going on that mostly seemed to involve throwing vegetable peelings over the fence at each other. That family always brought out the worst in his kids. But no. He didn’t mind that. Or how she once decided to take one of the saucepans and fill it with tadpoles for a ‘school project.’

What he did mind was having to tell Jemma that she was going to have to miss her first ever school nativity for yet another doctor’s appointment. He felt like a monster, telling her she couldn’t do the same things as her friends because of something she couldn’t help. Worse than that. He felt like that Mrs Tecteun, who never used to let her daughter out of the house. Or even her room.

Graham finished plating up their shepherd’s pie and sweetcorn. It was one of Jemma’s favourite foods but, looking at her, he could tell it wasn’t going to lift her spirits today as she moodily kicked the table leg.

“How can I make this better for you, cockle?”

Jemma didn’t answer. But she did finally shovel several spoonfuls of pie into her mouth so she didn’t have to talk, which he classed as a win. Getting this child to eat anything other than biscuits was a common challenge. In fact, up until today, he would have said it was his biggest one. Today he decided to follow her lead and eat. Give her time to open up and not press her for information like how he had been taught.

“Get rid of it,” she finally said. “I want a different heart. Not this stupid one. And stupid Doctor Astos won’t give me one.”

“I know. And I know you were excited about the play.”

Jemma shrugged at this, glaring at her plate like if she focused hard enough it would turn into a bag of star mix with precisely zero nutritional value but enough sugar to keep her up until three in the morning.

“Heart’s still stupid.”

“Well, it’s the one you’ve got and Doctor Astos sometimes gives you one of those lollies he keeps in the drawer when you think me and Nurse Malbi aren’t looking, so it’s not all bad.” The words had the effect he had hoped for as Jemma giggled against her will and then threw her hands in front of her mouth to try and hide it. Graham tried and failed to keep his face straight as he said: “That’s right, I know about his secret sweet stash. Don’t think I don’t.”

“S’not my fault. He needs help eating it cos Malbi says it’s bad for you even though it’s not actually, they’ve got no sugar. So they’re okay really.”

“Yeah, you’re a good helper. How fast do you eat it?”

“Super-fast!” She said, grinning from ear to ear, her upsets forgotten for now.

“How fast??” Graham matched her grin to his best ability, sadly lacking her elastic facial expressions. He laughed as she screwed her face up searching for an answer to her satisfaction.

“Faster than a really fast cheetah in a rocket wearing roller skates! Graham, can I do roller skating?”

“Hmm…” said Graham, tapping his chin and pretending to think. “I think I know something even better than doing roller skating.” He had Jemma’s total attention. “Oh. What was it? Don’t know if I remember.”

Jemma’s shoulders slumped slightly as her hands clung to the table. She wanted to know what Graham was talking about and she knew if she interrupted saying ‘tell me, tell me, tell me’ like she wanted to Graham would wind her up so much that they would both forget what they were talking about. Instead she pretended that she was disappointed and sadly spooned the last bit of sweetcorn into her mouth, a tactic she had learned from months of experience and knew would make Graham crack and tell her everything quickly.

“Only joking, Jem, how could I forget. Mrs Khan said that you, me and Yaz could go ice-skating next Saturday as a special end-of-term treat.”

“Do you think Ryan can come too?”

Graham thought for a second. The Christmas season was always tough on the wallet, what with presents and special food and whatnot. He’d set aside money for the last few months to make sure Jemma would have the best Christmas she could have, considering how it was the first she’d celebrated properly. But he hadn’t taken a third kid into account. Ryan would need a ticket for the bus and the ice-rink and he had been planning on taking the girls to a little shop that did hot chocolate with marshmallows…

Who was he kidding really? He could manage that. If he could cope with being Tommy’s Christmas respite home he could take a five year old to the ice rink.

“Well you’ll have to ask his mum or dad. It’s up to them.”

“Ryan doesn’t have a dad. But his Nan’s really nice and she gave me a Twix the other day and I bet she’d let him come with us!”

She probably would as well. Perhaps he should ask her to come with them, after all he’d never taken three children out at the same time before. He didn’t really know Yasmin or Ryan very well but if Jemma was friends with them then they were sure to keep him on his toes. It’s not shameful to ask for that extra bit of help. And Mrs Sinclair was loved by all. She would be the perfect person to help with the little monsters.

“Sounds brilliant Jemma. Now can you go and get your reading book.”

“I hate reading.” She said that every day without fail.

“Of course, you do.” She forgot that she hated reading every day, normally around thirteen words into whatever they were reading. Today it was Fantastic Mr Fox and it was a fact written into the fabric of time that Jemma would pretend not to listen right up until they reached one of the rhymes and would start chanting over the top like a witch stoked on caffeine.

For now, Graham satisfied himself with clearing the table and placing the plates into the sink. He would wash them later after homework and bath and bed and all the rest of the things you have to do with a five-year-old. They would be up until eleven if Jemma didn’t stop dragging her feet.

“Thought you said you were as fast as a cheetah in a rocket ship?”

“Faster.”

“Prove it.”

Graham sighed, only semi fondly, as he watched Jemma and the Masterson boys bickering. Well, to be fair to them it was only Oscar bickering. Harold was sulking that he had to walk with the ‘babies.’

In other words, the morning walk to Redlands Primary was going exactly the same as every other day he had known it. He and the child staying with him would head out to meet the Masterson family at 8:15 every morning and every morning, almost no matter which child was staying with him, one of the Masterson’s would start causing issues. Typically, his child would respond in kind and the twenty-minute walk would take eighteen months off Grahams life every morning as he tried to stop the feuding children pushing each other into the road.

For the past few months, the pair that Graham has to control is Jemma and Oscar who met the day Jemma moved in, were best friends by the end of the day and had been trying to irritate each other to death since. He wasn’t sure what it was about the three kids next door that had prompted this reaction from three of his kids.

Ah well, Graham thought as he tried and failed to strike up a conversation with Harold who just rolled his eyes and ran his hand through his bleach blonde hair.

Ah well, Graham thought as he had to leap out of the way of a car ploughing its way through a puddle on the edge of the road.

Oh shit, Graham thought as Oscar Owen Masterson made a fatal mistake.

“Girls can’t be scientists; they just make silly potions.” The little boy crowed grinning wildly up at Harold. He frowned as Harold proceeded to ignore him and Jemma turned to glare at him with the combined power of several solar systems. Graham placed his hand on her shoulder, hoping she would remember the rule about no biting on the school run.

“You’re wrong! You’re so wrong!” Graham briefly wondered whether he could get away leaving Oscar to walk with Harold and physically carry Jemma across the road. “I spliced the DNA of a banana last night.”

Somehow, he didn’t doubt that she sort-off knew what splicing was, even if he didn’t, however they didn’t have any bananas in the house at the moment. Between the two of them they had decided that December was a time for baby oranges. Therefore, he reasoned, he didn’t have to worry about trying to dismantle another science experiment this evening.

He really didn’t have the time.

Graham sometimes wondered why she was so passionate about science. Could be anybody’s guess. It could be anything from how she almost obsessively watches Bamzooki after school or how her mother had treated her almost as a lab rat or how she frequently spends longer than thirty seconds with Rhys, one of his old foster sons who runs the science club at their school and who covered his wall with the word physics written in various sizes before he left.

Speaking of, the boy in question caught his eye at the school gates before awkwardly smiling. He spotted Harold with them and very pointedly ignored them all, turning back to his friends. Rhys’ eleven-year-old brother Josh had no problems with being seen near Graham and jogged over.

“Heya Gray-ham,” he said when he reached them using the boys’ old nickname for him and setting Jemma off in giggles. Graham had been more worried about how Josh would adjust to being back with his parents than Rhys, but he seemed to be doing well. He may have hit a growth spurt but he didn’t have the ragged look that he’d had when Graham first met him even if he was lankier than should be possible.

“Hey Jems, wanna play football with me and River?”

Jemma shifted her weight between both feet for a second or two before giving a thumbs up. She turned up to Graham and took her lunchbox and bookbag from him before grabbing his hand and squeezing twice. It was her version of a hug and Graham treasured everyone that he got. The little girl swept her hand across her forehead and disrupted her hair, leaving it staticky and sticking up.

“Don’t forget to ask, Graham!” she called as she and Josh ran off, Josh running slowly so that Jemma could keep up. Graham had been lucky with all his kids so far. They might all have been labelled as difficult in the system but they were all good kids. You only had to look at how they treated each other; Josh and Jemma had never lived together but looking at them in the playground you would think they were siblings.

Smiling, Graham paused to watch for a minute or so as the children played and talked and argued together. When Jemma darted off to find Yaz, he remembered the other thing he had to do this morning.

Mrs Sinclair and her grandson were just arriving at the school gate. Yaz and Jemma waved to her as she gently straightened Ryan’s jumper. She raised his chin and held his head for a second before handing his bag to him. Ryan didn’t have a lunchbox, something that Jemma always sounded offended by even though it only meant that he had hot school meals instead. She was his strongest defender besides his mum and nan.

Jemma also sounded offended that she didn’t have a Spice Girls lunch box like Yaz even though she’d campaigned aggressively for her Pokemon one before school started. Kids.

After Ryan went off with his friends and a hug from his nan Graham approached. He didn’t know why he was feeling so nervous about asking. It was such a simple thing. Except he wasn’t just asking if Ryan could come along, which he was almost certain she would accept, he was also asking if she could join them and help. Graham ran his sweaty palm down the leg of his trouser. He wasn’t so sure about that.

“Er, hi?” he said. Wow. What an eloquent and inspired start there, Graham O’Brien. However, it did have the desired effect of catching Mrs Sinclair’s attention. “You’re Ryan’s nan, right?”

“Yeah. And you’re Jemma’s dad?”

Ah. How Graham hated those kinds of questions. It was the definition of innocent but would mean Jemma went from being one of the kids in Ryan’s year to the foster kid in Ryan’s year. Add in her heart condition and this woman might never look at her the same way. But he was getting ahead of himself.

“Sort off, I’m looking after her at the moment.” And there it was, that sparked of curiosity mixed with pity flashed across Mrs Sinclair’s eyes. To her credit it disappeared quickly and Graham continued. “Me and Najia Khan, Yaz’s mum, were planning an end of term treat and wondered if Ryan would like to come along.”

“Yes, he’d said something about it the other night,” she said smilingly. “What kind of thing were you thinking of?”

“Well, we’d start off at the ice rink. Jemma’s been gagging for roller skate forever and I don’t trust her on the hills. Then I guess we’d go to a café or something and get hot chocolate and cake.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said and then paused, leaving Graham’s heart thumping away in his belly. He’d misjudged this, he could tell by the look on her face that said it would be impossible. Maybe Ryan was deathly allergic to cake and she thought Graham was trying to poison him. “I’m sure Ryan would want to come along.”

She hesitated again. “I know this probably sounds overprotective or something but would it be okay if I joined you? Three five-year-olds between one person sounds stressful.” The smile she gave him was joyful and easy but didn’t quite meet her eyes fully.

He recognised the emotional battle in her eyes. There was something that she wasn’t telling him, not that he could talk. Should he mention that the reason he had insisted on going was so he could keep an eye on Jemma. He didn’t want to limit her but was also aware that she got breathless easily and so could get tired sometimes and wouldn’t admit it.

No. As lovely as she seemed to be Graham didn’t want this lady to think of Jemma any differently.

“That sounds perfect, Mrs Sinclair…”

“Grace. Only my bank statements call me Mrs Sinclair. I’ve got to go I’m afraid or I’ll be late but we should talk more about this. How about after the dress rehearsal next Wednesday?”

“Sure,” after all the dress rehearsal was during the school day so Jemma would still be there, only she would probably be poking the donkey’s ears as a protest against how unfair it was that she couldn’t be Mary. “Talk to you then. I’m Graham. Graham O’Brien”

And Grace smiled, her smile stretching like an elastic band across her face. Her eyes twinkled and she raised an arm in a wave as she headed out onto the road.


	2. Chapter 2

Graham had arrived early to pick Jemma up from school that Wednesday. Just in case the rehearsal hadn’t gone too well.

The rehearsal had been a disaster if he was interpreting the situation correctly and Graham was pretty sure he was. Jemma was sat apart from her friends repeatedly scrunching her school cardigan up in her fingers. Even from here he could see how tense she was and how she glanced over at the teacher regularly, lips firmly closed like she couldn’t trust herself not to talk in case she shouted. Or worse, cried.

She was doing well. All things considered. But he wished she was able to get angry or sad without spiralling into anxiety and guilt. The kid was only five for god’s sake! No kid should be as afraid but here it was. Sometimes he wished Tecteun could be here to see how her actions had had long term consequences on her precious daughter.

On second thoughts he wished Mrs Tecteun had never been allowed near Jemma. He hoped she would never see Jemma again - unless Jemma wanted it.

As a child Graham would have been trying to distract his mates or have been sent to time out for making a scene if you had taken away his role in the nativity. But Jemma still expected to be hurt for disagreeing or refusing to cooperate. She hadn’t realised that the abuse she had received hadn’t been normal and so even though she was angry, she was too scared to speak or move.

It was going to be an entertaining evening he was sure. Silent. Tense. Painful. 

When they got home Graham would try and treat this day normally while respecting her space. It was nearly the end of term so at least there was no homework to work through, she would probably sit in her room until Graham finished making tea. Getting Jemma to engage with or even just eat her food tonight would be a challenge. He was ready for it though and had bought a pack of custard creams to tempt her, today was not the day to be worried about her nutrition. 

Then perhaps he’d whack on a film she liked. They’d watch it in silence. More accurately he’d watch it in silence. Jemma would pick at her socks and sneak looks at the screen occasionally before falling asleep on the couch. Graham would hedge his bets about whether or not she would fall back asleep if he woke her so she could go to bed and settle on draping a blanket over her instead.

She’d probably wake up anyway.

It was what he’d signed up for. Graham O’Brien had discovered a rare talent for looking after deeply traumatised children during his first foster placement. Alexander had been newly blind, newly orphaned and newly depressed. He’d spent the first few weeks ignoring him totally and then swung straight to biting sarcasm and running away. It had taken a long time to get through to him using their mutual love of classic rock and several online courses on trauma informed parenting.  
Since then he’d become a recommended foster parent to children who had been dealt the worst cards in life. Other people looked at his kids and saw the hard work that went into helping or even just coexisting with them. Graham knew that they were the ones having to work hard.

Huh. Alexander would be in secondary school by now. He wondered if Melissa from next door still spoke/fought with him. Tomorrow he’d ask Harold. He wouldn’t get a response but it was a good thing to fail to talk about.

As the class finished packing up costumes and the teacher finished navigating the inevitable arguments about who’s jumper was who’s, he spotted Grace Sinclair. Her grandson Ryan, frowned as he struggled to untie the string holding the tea towel to his head. Graham dimly recognised how Grace held herself back from taking over and waited until he sighed and asked.

Grace looked over for a second and rolled her eyes fondly in his direction.

The hall gradually emptied until it was there were only a few families left. Jemma ran over to him without warning and paused just before she crashed into his legs. He hadn’t even spotted when she decided that it was quiet enough to move. Her arms swung even as she stood still, staring at Graham’s shoes, having stepped back away from him with a flinch.

Ignoring how his knees argued, he crouched down to her level.

“What’s going on in that head, eh, cockle?” He desperately wanted to smooth her hair down or hug her – give her some kind of comfort but held himself back. Physical contact in his family was either instigated by the child or given after specific asking. And too many questions right now wouldn’t help anything.

Either way he wasn’t sure if she’d answer any other questions. Jemma normally chattered away at several words per second, so the empty air dancing between his question and any response was unusual and concerning.

“Can we go?”

She looked so little. Like a birthday balloon two weeks later. 

“Of course,” he said. It wasn’t a question he even had to think about. “We’ll go straight home if that’s what you want.”

Jemma nodded. Her whole personality was on mute as she and him walked out. Just as they reached the doorway of the hall Graham looked back. Grace looked up from where she was helping Ryan with his shoe straps and met his eyes.

It had taken Ryan an age to get dressed. He seemed to struggle with it and it was easy to see he was frustrated. A look of understanding passed between the pair of adults. Both their kids needed additional support sometimes and both their guardians would support them however they could. He wondered at the look of confused pain he had seen in Grace’s eye before now, perhaps they didn’t yet know what it was that Ryan was needing.  
Perhaps they didn’t know how to help him. Perhaps it was serious. 

It wasn’t his business.

Besides, Graham knew what Jemma needed right now and it involved getting out of this hall so she could be in a more private place. Hopefully she knew that he wouldn’t judge her for how she will inevitably react and would let these emotions out. Either way, she needed to be in a safe and quiet place without people’s eyes on her.

Yes, now was not the time to plan the kids’ trip, even if it was a conversation that had to happen. Both parents sighed silently and gave soft but strained smiles towards each other, knowing that they would have to somehow find another time to talk. The teachers waved brightly towards them as Jemma turned for the door, their hands falling slightly as they saw how she didn’t wave back like normal. 

Grace nodded to him and helped her grandson with his shirt buttons.

Graham nodded to her and followed his foster daughter out of the school in silence.

He would track down the Sinclair’s in the Yellow Pages during one of Jemma’s short sleeping spells tonight. Get it all sorted before the appointment tomorrow so there would be something to look forward to for the kid.

Graham was considering getting a second job as a fortune teller considering how well he had managed to predict this evening. It hadn’t been great. 

Jemma had come home silent and, in her typical fashion, attempted to act like nothing was wrong even as she became increasingly snipy with him in a way he was glad her teachers didn’t witness. I mean he wished she hadn’t felt the need to bottle it up but that didn’t mean he wasn’t grateful for small mercies. At least he wouldn’t have another year group worth of teachers insisting that he was failing his kids.

That school did its best but it was only a bog-standard primary with very little in the way of provision for special educational needs. There was only so much a teacher could cope with when they were untrained to deal with trauma and also had to deal with thirty other kids.

Still, he hoped Jemma wouldn’t be saddled with Mrs Blaine like his Tommy had been. Four parents’ evenings with her making gradually more pointed comments were more than enough for him. Mr Pink seemed to be a much better guy.

Normally Jemma came home after school chattering away about all the different things he had taught the class. Not today.

She was still sat in the living room on their beaten-up sofa, glued to the screen that was currently on it’s second showing of Lilo and Stitch of the night. Graham honestly wasn’t sure what part to be more concerned about – the way she would silently mouth along to the ‘ohana means family’ moments or how she nodded seriously along with Lilo’s attempts at voodoo.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to try new things but he’d only just curbed the biting.

As he scraped the remains of the barely touched baked beans into a bowl for the fridge he wondered about tomorrow. He’d only been with her to one check up before. It had seemed very simple and basic; the doctor asked questions, pretended to ‘sneak’ her a lollypop and gave Graham a stack of leaflets to work through that now sit on his bedside cabinet with the most important parts written onto a sheet he keeps tacked up to the fridge with Josh’s magnetic art project.  
The leaflets went through what caused her condition, how long it would last and what potential treatment options were. It also outlined all the warning signs that something might be going wrong and who to call if it does. That was what they were worried about.

Jemma’s breathing had been getting more difficult and she got tired more often. According to the leaflets and an internet search done at the local library made while Jemma and Yaz had been trying to read the Gruffalo to baby Sonia under Mrs Khan’s careful supervision, this meant that she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. According to the tone of voice the doctor at the cardiac unit in Liverpool had adopted when he was told, this wasn’t a good thing.

And so, they were having to go in for an extra appointment which Jemma had solemnly told him would have lots of tests. Graham wasn’t sure how much of that was technically true and how many of these tests had been caused by Mrs Tecteun’s unnecessary meddling.

Either way, he was fairly sure this was going to be a different kind of trip to Liverpool compared to last time, which Graham had also used as an excuse to take Jemma to see the dinosaurs at one of the big museums. This time it was during a school day and the appointment itself was in the afternoon. He had briefly considered sending her in for the morning but having to leave as the other kids were putting on their costumes would probably be worse.

And either way, last time it took two and a half hours to get there. Though, granted it would be easier now that he knew the way.

So, tomorrow was going to be stressful. But it was also going to be a day where lie-ins were acceptable, a godsend considering how the five-year-old in the other room would definitely not be going to sleep before about two this evening.

Graham poked his head through the door to where Jemma was sitting with a cushion being squashed into her chest as the movie played. This was about as calm as she’s been all day and so he left her to it and instead went to find their copy of the Yellow Pages under the stairs.

It was covered in dust which about summarised his social life.

Back in their kitchen he made himself a cup of tea and sat with the book on the table, sweeping his finger down the pages for marked s for the Sinclairs. There were two families living in the area but none of them had a G marked before it. Perhaps it was Grace’s husband it was listed under instead? He picked up their phone from its place by the kettle.

Graham waited until the first number had finished ringing and hoped they weren’t just out.

The second number only rang once before it was picked up and he was on call with a child who fiercely told him that he had to come save him or bad things would happen before somebody chased him off and answered.

“Sorry about that; he’s convinced the spider in the bath’s a monster. This is the Sinclair’s, who’s this?” said a tired voice with a chuckle.

“Er, yes, hi? This is Graham O’Brian. This is Ryan Sinclair’s house, right? Only my… Jemma’s goes to his school and…”

“You’re Jemma’s dad? Yeah this is Ryan’s mum. I’m guessing your looking for Ry’s nan? She said she was expecting a call.”

Graham nodded before blushing red. He didn’t use the phone as much as he used to and apparently some habits that make you seem normal do just disappear on you. He had to force himself to confirm this woman’s question outloud.

“Pity. You’ve just missed her; she headed out to work like twenty minutes ago. Anything I can help you with?”

“Not sure. We were going to sort the details after school for this weekend but we had to go. It’s fine. I’ll call tomorrow.”

“She’ll be picking up Ryan like always if that helps?”

“Not tomorrow,” he said slowly as he awkwardly scratched the top of his neck to help him think. “Jemma’s got – well – she’s got an appointment?”

“Ah, I see. Yeah. Well. Call sometime after school tomorrow? Before seven thirty though.”

“Will do. Thanks Ryan’s mum.”

“Kathy,” she said with another breathy chuckle. “No problem. Now I’d better try and get Ryan into the bath or we won’t get any peace tonight. Talk to you soon Mr O’Brian.”

“Good luck, bye.”

He should talk to more parents, Graham thought as he went in to check on Jemma. It was good to know that, apparently, other kids also gave their parents the run around and refused point blank to get in the bath. Sometimes it felt like it was just him who couldn’t seem to cope with his, he would wonder late at night whether he was doing things wrong. Or whether the kids were acting out because of their past. 

Talking to other parents proved to him that children were just small demons in the bodies of small humans who only survived because they were cute and occasionally did nice things like make you macaroni art for Christmas. 

In a state of calm that came with not being a failure of a parent he entered the room. During the time it took to make that phone call she had managed to build a den out of the drying rack next tot e wall. Throwing the still wet clothes onto the floor so she could cover it in towels and use it as a small but effective fort.

Graham picked up the wet clothes and spent the remainder of the movie placing a sock or vest onto the den every few minutes. By the time it finished and Jemma crawled out to replace it with their copy of the Jungle Book he had managed the whole basket.

When Jemma noticed she didn’t seem as impressed as he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone who has read this so far. i have loved reading people's comments and will try to keep replying as much as i can. hope you're enjoying
> 
> also. fun fact my big brother once answered a phonecall like ryan does in this chapter except for him it was because of tomatoes.


	3. Chapter 3

Jemma’s legs swung to and fro beneath the medical bed she was perched on. Her hair was stubbornly slipping out of the plaits Graham had attempted this morning. The plaits hadn’t been great to start with if he was honest with himself. She hadn’t cared.

Her gaze fell onto the wall behind him, which she studied intensely. There was no way she wasn’t nervous but this wasn’t how it normally showed itself. They’d already done the height, weight and ‘basic observations’ but Doctor Astos had been grabbed by a nurse for something and the change in routine had thrown her off balance.

“Is that a new poster?”

Graham twisted around in his seat to look at the wall where a mostly blue poster lay where there had once been a red and white information sheet about blood donation. 

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why not the old one?” she said with a focused frown. Not angry or upset, Graham noted, just focused. This he could manage. Answer then divert attention. 

“They probably got bored of reading it all the time and wanted a change. What does it say?”

“Dunno.”

“What did the old one say then? Do you remember?”

“Uh huh. It said blood doesn’t grow on trees. And it had a picture of a tree with blood leaves not leaf leaves.”

“Right, so what does this new one say?”

“Un-for…” she paused, squinting at the poster and trying to point at the separate letters from where she was sat.

“Yeah, that’s a long word isn’t it. Come on over and we’ll sound it out together.”

Jemma used her hands to push off from the bed and landed with a quiet thud. Behind her the paper sheet slid onto the floor with a breath. She climbed onto the chair next to him and they gradually went through the surprisingly complex poster in the way Mr Pink had shown her at school. You would not believe how confusing learning to read could be when you already knew how. Its all phonics and stretching and stuff.

“So, what’s it say, Jemma?”

“Unfortunately, no amount of antibiotics will get rid of your cold.” She said, grinning up at him. “Graham, what’s a antibiotic?”

This was at least thirty percent of the reason disliked doctor’s appointments almost as much as Jemma herself. So many medical questions he didn’t know how to answer.

“It’s medicine. Stops you feeling sick.”

“But if you have a cold, you’re sick so why don’t antibiotics stop it?”

And thank the lord for well timed interventions. The door was opening and Jemma was very clearly torn between jumping to the floor or attempting a the-floor-is-made-of-lava manoeuvre and crash landing on the floor after missing the bed. Either way feet on the chair was bad. He pulled her into a sitting position on the chair.

“Thought I told you to wait on the bed?”

“But you were gone really long and I got bored so we read the new poster and why don’t antibiotics get rid of colds.”

Graham was pretty sure you needed the patience of a saint to work in paediatrics with children who don’t understand procedures and never stop asking questions. Doctor Astos had that patience though and smiled softly at his patient as he took his seat.

“Antibiotics work on sicknesses caused by germs called bacteria. Colds are caused by germs called viruses. Antibiotics don’t work on viruses. Make sense?” Jemma nodded in a satisfied manner. “Okay then, can you jump back up on the bed for me?”

As she climbed back onto the bed, he started with the questions that came standard with these appointments. Graham always appreciated how Doctor Astos would ask Jemma before asking him even when her answers weren’t quite what he had been looking for.

“So how are you today Jemma?”

“Not good,” was her reply and Graham felt his heart sink into his shoes.

“Sorry to hear that, what’s not good?”

“Yaz is a angel, Ryan’s a shepherd, I was meant to be Mary. Even Oscar got to be the innkeeper. I just got to help cut out the star and it’s not fair.”  
Doctor Astos sent Graham a look that he felt deep in his soul. One that said, I have no idea what’s happening but nobody can ever find out, please help me. Graham was a gentleman, in his personal opinion, so he stepped in to help.

“It’s really not is it Jems? There’s a spot in the nativity play next year just waiting for you.”

“Oh, that must be really frustrating for you Jemma. I’m sorry your missing the school play.”

“Not the school play. The nativity play. It’s different.”

“My mistake. Other than not being in the nativity play, how are you?”

She shrugged. “Fine.”

“You’re breathing is okay? No tiredness?” as usual with these appointments, the moment medical questions were being asked she went quiet. Doctor Astos looked over to Graham and asked him the same questions.

“Mostly fine, yeah. But she’s been getting out of breath more easily and more tired.”

“I thought that might be happening. You’re looking a bit pale Jemma.”

Graham loved this kid. He truly did. That didn’t stop him wanting to sigh and pinch his nose like his own mum used to when he had done something he wasn't allowed to as she simply raised a shoulder in response. She didn’t raise her head at all until Doctor Astos said the fatal words, at which point it bounced up like it was on a spring.

“I’m going to order a few quick tests for her, Graham. You can both stay in here for a bit while I get the machine.”

Jemma stared at the man as he left the room before turning and grabbing the hand resting on his knee in desperation.

“Is he gonna steal my blood? What kind of tests are they gonna be Graham?”

“Hey, cockle,” he said, taking Jemma’s lead in terms of physicality and covering her hand with his larger one. “If he needs to do blood tests it’ll be quick and I won’t leave. I’ll be right here. I’ll make them stop if it’s too much.”

“I don’t like the tests. Any of them. They hurt, Graham. They really hurt.”

Now, Graham O’Brian may not have a cardiac condition but he had had a fairly substantial amount of experience with hospitals and medical tests. Some, but not all, of the tests had been on his heart as well. He was pretty sure that the standard tests didn’t hurt. They felt pretty alien. But apart from the blood tests, they didn’t hurt.

That bastard of a so-called mother probably made them hurt somehow. When the nurses’ backs were turned or something. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but he knew enough about the family history to know it was possible.

Maybe they’re just different tests.

Distraction and diversion might not be the best way to solve this. So, Graham did the only thing he could think of and went and sat by the little girl. Almost instantaneously she curled into his side and shook. When Doctor Astos got back he was busy whispering assurances to her as her breathing calmed back down. The doctor saw the state of his young patient and immediately left, leaving the machine behind and not saying where he was going.

“Jemma, have you seen this kind of machine before? Cos I don’t think I have and it looks pretty interesting.” Graham said softly and slowly. He waited until he could see her face peeking out to look before he continued. “There’s so many buttons and wires. I wouldn’t even know what it does let alone how it works.”

“They stick the stickers on you and it tells you about stuff.”

“Oh. We’ll that doesn’t sound too bad. Perhaps I should have one done?”

“Probably, cos you’re so old.” 

Unlike usually this wasn’t said with her typical underlying cheek hidden by a sleeve over her mouth. It was said quietly and seriously. Doctor’s offices weren’t a place for messing around or playing in her view, clearly. Obviously, he wasn’t saying it would ever be a silly place, but maybe he could make it better.

“Ah, maybe you’re right. Seeing as how you know so much about it why don’t you do one for me? If its only stickers I think I could cope.”

“Really?” she said, finally unpeeling herself from his side and looking up at him. There was a speck of life in her eyes once again. He’d get blood tests done by an alligator to get her looking alive again.

“You said it’s stickers, right? I can see them there,” he wasn’t lying. There was a small plastic container full of small square plasters. There was probably a hell of a lot more to the test than just the stickers but figured that placebo might help her through this. He was a dedicated foster father who had very little dignity to lose.

Doctor Astos returned with two women; one in a purple tunic and one in a grey shirt just at the perfect moment. Graham had his shirt unbuttoned with four stickers placed haphazardly on his chest while Jemma pressed buttons on the unresponsive machine at random. The woman in purple smiled at the scene.

“Looks like its all handled in here,” she said.

“He needs his heart checked too cos hes so old.” Jemma informed the newcomers seriously, thankfully not noticing how they both had to swallow their laughter.

“Its true,” said Graham. “But she’s a good doctor so it didn’t hurt at all.”

“Well, that’s good isn’t it? And the doctors here are also pretty good,” the woman in purple said. “I think you already know Doctor Astos but this is Priya and she’s going to do the ECG test for you today.”

“Who are you?”

“Oh,” she said with a chuckle. “My names Melanie. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“That’s what Doctor Astos is for.”

“True. True. I want to help make it easier for you. Looks like your dad’s got it sorted though.”

“Graham’s not my dad. Graham’s Graham.”

“Well then, Graham’s got it sorted. How’s his heart?”

“His blood pressures bad.”

Graham looked over at Doctor Astos and Priya. They looked back in confusion. Priya mouthed something that looked like ‘that’s not what it measures.’ Jemma did this sometimes, when it came to heart related things she spoke like someone learning a language at random by choosing words from the dictionary and inserting them into her speech without either knowing what it means or what the basic rules of the language are.

“…be okay if Priya comes and attaches some stickers to your chest now?”

Jemma climbed back onto the bed, pulling off her tshirt with an air of forced boredom. “Do you want me up or down?” she asked.

“It’ll be more comfortable if you lie down. Have you had one of these before?” Priya said as she switched the machine on. The others left the room discretely as she attached six of the stickers onto the left side of Jemma’s chest. 

When she unravelled the wires and brought them towards Jemma the little girls breath hitched in her throat. Graham spoke quickly; “What are those for?”

“I’m going to attach them to the bottom of the stickers and it’ll let show me how your hearts beating. It looks a bit like a lie detector machine in the movies if you want to watch?”

Graham kept asking questions about this and that as she checked the reading. At one stage she moved a sticker, probably to get a better reading, he thought. He was glad Jemma hadn’t thought of doing that. It would have given him a partial chest waxing.

Priya’s eyebrows pulled together for a heartbeat before she pulled off the printed chart and called Doctor Astos in who was stood waiting. She handed him the chart with a pinched look in her eyes and a quick point at a piece of information that he couldn’t decipher. All he could get from it was that it wasn’t good and that they only shared the look when Jemma couldn’t see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This artwork is beautiful, thanks @braddersbangerz](https://braddersbangerz.tumblr.com/post/624474476493635584/i-drew-a-really-rough-picture-of-foster-dad-graham)


	4. Chapter 4

Jemma stood by the fish tank and followed a fish with her finger, leaving slightly sweaty marks all over the glass. She bounced her knee up and down at a frantic rate that hurt Graham’s eyes. It hurt more to know that as fast as her leg was beating it wasn’t nearly as fast as her heart was. Which was too fast apparently.

The results of the ECG test hadn’t been good. Doctor Astos had sat them down and calmly explained using words that were too long and a face that was too kind. It suggested something to do with a valve apparently. This tiny little uptick on the chart might cause so many headaches.

Graham was holding tight to that ‘might’.

For now, nothing was certain. Which was both a blessing and a curse in his personal opinion. He wasn’t sure if he would rather be told now that it was something bad or wait a while and find out that nothing was wrong. He hadn’t felt as much like a coiled spring since they first told him that a kid would be living with him.

At least then he had thought he knew what he was getting into. He had been almost entirely wrong but that was besides the point. Back then he had been able to do the research and read books on parenting. Even the leaflets they had given him back at the start had only said that congenital heart defects were a chronic condition.

He supposed he hadn’t taken it seriously enough. Thought that an issue meant Jemma would have to have check ups and maybe take medicines like his neighbour when he was a boy who had asthma. The idea that it might get worse hadn’t even occurred to him.

It should have occurred to him.

But that didn’t matter. Because at the moment it was still only might. At the moment Jemma was still a healthy kid who hadn’t stopped singing the words to Little Donkey out of order the entire journey here. She was just a kid who happened to have been sick when she was a baby, whose mother really dragged it out and made it worse.

In a few hours they would know. Doctor Astos had booked an echocardiogram for quarter past two which was about the most irritating time he could have chosen. Not immediately after the appointment but with too short a gap to go and do anything. When Graham had asked what the test was, he said it was like an ultrasound but looking at things that aren’t babies.

He had then chuckled and told Jemma that she’d probably had dozens when she was a baby. Sighing had been her only obvious response but Graham had noticed how her legs had tensed up; a sure sign that she was uncomfortable.

Either way, he’d never been to an ultrasound before. It didn’t exactly prepare him and Doctor Astos had seemed so confident that he had just nodded.

Hospitals and doctors weren’t his favourite things in the world after his cancer scare a few years back. Considering how little Jemma liked them as well it probably wasn’t the best combination they could have chosen. But he liked the little kid and she seemed to like him as well judging by how she was currently gesturing wildly for him to come over.

“The green one’s gone,” she cried with a waving hand and honestly, Graham had never been so confused before in his life.

“Oh,” he settled on.

“There used to be a little green one. Nurse Malbi would let me say hi to it even when Mum didn’t want me to.”

“That sounds… it sounds like you really like Nurse Malbi don’t you?”

“But she’s not here today. ‘Because nurses have days off Jemma not like me - I don’t get a day off.’ But the green one’s not here too and the green one’s always here.”

It didn’t take a genius or a child psychologist or anyone like that to see how distressed she was. How fast she was speaking like she was manic. Normally he only saw this behaviour after she’d come home from Yaz’s house, when she was so excited and happy, she could burst. She would talk at the rate of three words per second and bounce off the walls for a few hours. This was not like that at all, it was worse. 

Jemma had been like a ghost when she’s first come to live with him. If it wasn’t for the fact that part of his job as a foster parent was making sure the child eats, he wouldn’t have known she was there. In fact, the only words she would say were words like those.

They were somebody specific’s words and that person wasn’t Jemma.

Mrs Tecteun Smith.

A charming woman he was sure. All he had been told about her were two things; she had hurt Jemma and that she couldn’t hurt Jemma anymore. That was incorrect. Very clearly, she was still hurting Jemma. Those stupid words she had put in her child’s head were still hurting her.

“Hey,” he breathed out as he crouched down to Jemma’s level. “It’s alright. Can you look at me a second?”

When Jemma’s eyes met his it was only for a split second before she looked down at her practically vibrating leg. Suddenly, she pressed her hand against her knee to stop it moving. It was almost aggressive how she’d done it and Graham winced.

“I’m really sorry that Nurse Malbi and the green one aren’t here today. It must be really confusing for you. And that’s never a nice thing is it? But, and this bit’s really important Jems, they’re not gone because you’re here today. Alright? Nurses have days off from the hospital like how you have the weekend off from school. That’s all. I promise.”

The little girl battled with herself for a long time before nodding and turning back to the fish tank.

“Where the green one go?”

“Probably retired. Been working here a long time, right?”

“Graham,” Jemma said very seriously with a touch of the gentle tone of voice you took with a child when explaining you were about to divorce their other parent. “The green one’s gone. That means dead.”

Graham was pathetically fond of this kid.

“Nope!” Graham called as the radiographer looked on in confused horror. “Spit it out. Spit it into…”

Jemma looked the more alive than she had done for the last two days. Damn he wished it wasn’t almost anything else that gave that spark back he thought as he stuck a paper towel under her chin. You would have thought that after looking after her for more than four months he would have figured out to watch his words more carefully around her but no.

Of course, she would interpret ‘okay now you can get rid of the gel’ as permission to eat it. 

Who wouldn’t?

Even the medical professionals who dealt with children every day looked weirded out. If it wasn’t for the fact that Graham knew this specific kid very well, he would totally understand. This child would attempt to eat anything, something that didn’t appear on her extensive medical records. It probably didn’t appear on many medical syllabuses either.

Imagine thinking that you’re going into a very serious class about managing children’s behaviour in hospitals and they just hit you with; some children apparently like to try and eat the ultrasound gel the moment you stop focusing on them.

Honestly, it had surprised him too. There is really no way you can prepare for Jemma and in his case, it had been some gravel on their second day together. He wasn’t sure if gravel ranked better or worse than ultrasound gel.

It didn’t matter. Jemma had spat it out as instructed with a glare. The doctors discussed things with serious looks on their faces that he didn’t appreciate. Graham tried to find the bin.

Jemma had taken pity on him after far longer than he would admit in his tell-all biography and everything had been solved for a short while. Until Jemma managed to put her t shirt on the wrong way round and refused to sort it out, resulting in semi-mimed but impressively long argument that finished with Jemma putting her jumper on top. When her head poked out the hole and she had finished pulling her arms through the sleeves she snuck a glance at the doctors and paled.

For the first time, Graham had the exact same reaction.

Doctor Astos smiled gently at them both like they were about to break into pieces before suggesting they move into the consulting room. Judging by Jemma’s face she had been there before. Judging by Doctor Astos and the radiographers faces it wasn’t a good thing to go there.

To be fair to everyone involved the consulting room was a thousand times more comfortable than the small room down in the depths of the x-ray department. There were soft chairs, art on the wall and Jemma had been taken by one of the ladies in purple to play out in the play room. What Graham didn’t appreciate was that there was a pack of tissues on the table.

Several other people had joined them. Graham recognised Sarah-Jane, Jemma’s social worker and raised a hand in greeting. As for the rest, there were nurses, doctors and the radiographer who had done the ultrasound. Even though there was, physically, enough space it felt crowded and he struggled to keep his breathing even.

Graham took one of the tissues from the box and ran it through his fingers smoothly in a motion that he only realised he had picked up from Jemma when he saw Sarah-Jane smile sadly at him.

“Mr O’Brian?” what Graham assumed was the head doctor began. “My name is Alistair Leftbridge-Stewart. I’m one of the consultant cardiologists here which means I oversee the care of all the patients on this unit.”

It took Graham a few seconds to realise he was meant to respond.

“Yeah. That includes Jemma, right?”

“Yes. Jemma Smith is one of my patients,” Graham decided that he quite liked Doctor Leftbridge-Stewart when he saw the fond smile he gave. “Now, as you know, her heart condition is rather serious, so I’m glad you picked up on her deterioration.

I know. It’s a horrible word isn’t it? The tests today have shown that the surgery she had as a baby needs some adjustments, which is common in our truncus children. Priya told you about the possibility of a valve problem earlier, am I correct?”

Now Graham definitely couldn’t breath. The might that he had been clinging to was rapidly slipping out of reach. The thin paper between his fingers was disintegrating as he scrunched it repeatedly. He nodded mutely.

“The echocardiogram has confirmed it. Jemma is having truncal valve regurgitation which essentially means that some of her blood is going to the wrong place. Its what’s making her pale and breathless.” The doctor was being very kind, but the words weren’t going in properly. “I can see this is a lot for you to take in. Do you have any questions?”

“Is she going to need surgery again?” Sarah-Jane asked purposefully. Graham had forgotten that anyone other than Doctor Leftbridge-Stewart and himself were here. He looked up and saw the social worker sitting with a small notebook open and a worried expression.

“Yes. It’s not an emergency but it is important. That is to say, we’re not going to be taking her in today or tomorrow but she has already been put onto the list. It’s likely to be more than a month before she needs to come in. I’m sorry to say this but surgery is the only solution.”

Sarah-Jane nodded and wrote furiously into her notebook, blowing her dark hair out from her eyes in the process. “How long would she need to be in for? Do you know?”

“At least a week I’m afraid, but it depends on how she responds.” 

Graham felt numb. The words flowed around him like he was underwater in a river until he heard the phrase temporary fostering. Which pulled him out of his current state straight into anger.

“No way,” he said, giving up the tissue paper for dead. “She’s not getting a different family just for while she’s at hospital. I’m coming in. I’ll get a hotel room or something, she’s not having strangers with her just because it’s a bit of a trek to get here.”

From the corner of his eye he could see Miss Sarah-Jane Smith smirk slightly and realised he had been played. She knew that suggesting something that didn’t fit with his views would snap him out of it. Like how when he was feeling overwhelmed about Jemma’s first appointment and she offered to take her instead with an irritated tone in her voice.

“We actually have parent beds on the inpatient wards.” Mentioned the strict looking nurse with the rest of the group nodding along. “It really helps having a familiar face.”

“Why?” was the response Graham came up with to the doctor’s question. The question he really wanted to ask. However, the nurse’s face had knitted together in a confused way and he continued quickly. “Why is her valve going wrong?”

“Well, you see, when we she was born, she only had one valve. Same as how she only had one major blood vessel taking blood away from her heart. So, when we separated the blood vessels, we also had to make a second valve. Do you follow?” 

Graham had done plenty of reading about truncus arteriosus five months ago when he first met Jemma so he nodded at the doctor – he didn’t feel quite as totally lost as he had been a few minutes ago. 

“Unfortunately, the new valve doesn’t work as well as it should which means that the blood starts mixing and the body doesn’t get enough oxygen. Now we have to go back and refit the valve. It’s a fairly common side effect.”

The rest of the meeting went by in a blur of questions and answers that he tried desperately to remember. Sarah-Jane discussed the long-term pros and cons of treatments with the precision and focus of a private investigator while the nurses offered to show him and Jemma around the ward before the surgery. Eventually, Doctor Leftbridge-Stewart left with a handshake to take a phone call, marking the meeting as over.

When they left the room Graham’s head was spinning until Sarah-Jane handed him a page from her notebook, covered in neatly written notes. She shrugged half-heartedly when she noticed his surprised expression.

“I trained as a journalist before I realised, they wouldn’t let me investigate the things I wanted to. Figured this was where I could work on stuff that’s important. The information you need is here, if you need something call me or the ward. Tell Jemma hi from me, okay? I’ve got to run.”

Sarah-Jane gave him a quick one-armed hug and pointed him down the corridor to where the play room was. Inside he could see Jemma sat with the woman from earlier as they played with action figures and what Graham was pretty sure was a blown-up glove being marched around like it was some kind of dinosaur.

The little girl waved him over with a smile and as he started gathering up their things for the long journey back to Sheffield, he decided he would tell her after school tomorrow. Give her a bit more time to be okay before everything changed. 

For now, he had to attempt to negotiate Jemma down from her determination to take the action figures home with them. Its not even like bribing her would work this time, he had already promised her a trip to McDonald’s on the way home.

Focus on this at the moment and don’t think about the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> [Thanks to @picnokenesis for this lush artwork!](https://picnokinesis.tumblr.com/post/624738150476054528/a-little-fanart-for-justepicstreetwolf-s)  
> 
> 
>   
> and yeah. jemma has truncus arteriosus, also known as common truncus. its where the heart develops with only one major artery and only one valve. its very rare and needs specialist care which is why jemma is specifically being treated at alder hey childrens hospital in liverpool
> 
> im fairly sure there was a reason i chose that specific one but i cant remember it


	5. Chapter 5

Jemma wasn’t stupid.

She knew something was going on. When they got back from the hospital yesterday Graham had let her have some Haribo even though she’d had a milkshake with her happy meal on the way back. And then he’d read her favourite story for her twice before bed instead of trying to get her to read her school books.

Which mean something was wrong. And it was annoying because Yaz didn’t get it. Even though Yaz was really smart and had worn a tinsel halo for the nativity yesterday. Yaz was definitely her best friend in the whole world because she hadn’t made a big deal about her missing it.

Not like stupid Oscar from next door who kept going on about how amazing he was as the innkeeper on the way here until Graham had told him off. Its not like the innkeeper is even a big role you just have to say no and look grumpy and Oscar always looked grumpy.

But even Yaz didn’t get that something was wrong. She just thought it was cool that Graham had let her have sweets after tea because her mum would never let her do anything like that. Graham was the best Graham in the universe but that meant that most the time he only let her have sweets sometimes. Not twice in one day.

Which meant he didn’t want her to feel sad about something. And the nativity play had already happened so it wasn’t that. Unless he was just being weird again. Like last night when he told her that Sarah her social worker said hi and then just asked for another chip.

The only thing he should have been scared about with that was that Sarah would start talking about how big Jemma was now. Apparently, she had a little girl who had been a baby just yesterday which Jemma was pretty sure wasn’t possible. And her son was starting some kind of maths thing at university this year.

But Sarah did have a really cool dog that she sometime would show Jemma pictures of.

Actually, Jemma decided that she wished she had seen the dog again. It didn’t have a real name like most dogs; it was called Canine because that’s another word for dog and they couldn’t think of anything else.

Adults laughed when they heard that but Jemma didn’t really get why. In fact, she didn’t understand a lot about what adults do. 

Yesterday all the adults had looked really serious sometimes but then they’d smile at her and take her away to play somewhere else. It was like she was pressing an on and off light switch – when they didn’t see her looking, they frowned and when they saw her looking, they smiled. Even Graham who she was completely sure wouldn’t lie to her.

And Yaz didn’t get it.

Yaz had a mum and a dad and a nani and a baby Sonia. Oscar had a dad and a daddy and a Harold and a Melissa and a cat. Ryan had a mum and a nan and a dad who sometimes took him to the cinema. Jemma wasn’t allowed to see her mum anymore, she just had Graham.

She dragged her pencil into her desk until it left a little mark that she could feel when she ran her finger over it. Lowering her shoulders slightly she smiled for a short second, but she still just felt mad.

Ryan watched her from the cloakroom where he was rustling through his bag. There wasn’t much going on and Mr Pink seemed to have given up trying to get them to do their sums pages and was showing a group of kids how to make snowflakes out of old paper. The rest of the class talked and laughed together, mostly about the nativity yesterday. Even Izzy was talking nicely with the other girls and not giving Yaz a hard time again.

It was just the small blonde sat alone. Yaz had sat with her for ages but Jemma hadn’t been acting normal so she gave up after lunch. She didn’t want to play games about the strange aliens she was so good at making up. Not even when Ryan said he didn’t mind being killed by the stenza.

So, he got the card out from his bag. All the rest had been given out yesterday because he hadn’t wanted to forget them. It was just a card from a pack from the pound shop that had a puppy wearing a Santa hat on the front.

But he thought it might make her feel a bit better so he went to her table with the envelope in his hand and dropped it in front of her.

“It’s for you, cos my nan says it’s good to give your friends nice things.”

And his friend opened the envelope smoothly. She pulled out the card that his mum had helped him write a few days ago. And Jemma Smith smiled.

Properly smiled as she looked at the puppy on the front and the row of x’s Ryan had done all by himself. Which he had only put onto his favourite people’s cards; Jemma, Yaz and Mr Pink. 

“I didn’t get you one. I’m sorry.”

“S’alright.”

The two children remained in a peaceful and fulfilling silence for all of forty seconds before Jemma dragged him under the table to where the teacher and the rest of the kids were sitting to tell him her new story that she thought about when she couldn’t sleep.

“So, this is all completely true by the way. There’s this other place, a whole universe, but we can’t get there because if it gets too close it makes everything go wrong here. That’s why things are bad here sometimes. This other universe feels lonely and comes closer and makes everything become sick and bad.”

“Why doesn’t it just not make things bad?”

“It doesn’t know how. Things just always go wrong around it. Everything goes wrong.”

“Yeah. It does.”

Ryan thought about his dad and how he didn’t see him all the time. He touched the bruise on his hip he’d got from bumping into a table. Jemma thought about her mum and how she never saw her and wasn’t sure if she wanted to. She held close to the card her friend had got her.

The other kids wouldn’t get it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this ones a bit short but hey, here we are
> 
> for context this isn't meant to be bashing jemma and yas's friendship. but yas has a very stable home life and neither of the others do so i feel like she'd struggle to relate to jemma's situation (shes five, cut her some slack)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw panic attack near end of chapter

The remaining kids played about in the classroom as Graham and Grace attempted to finally sort out the more intricate details of their trip, although, apparently some of the basic parts had been decided on the day before with Najia. Graham risked a glance at the others.

Mr Pink had quietly taken him aside as the children tried to get parents to talk and make plans so that they could see their new friends over the Christmas break to tell him that Jemma had been out of sorts for most of the day. Apparently, she had been grumpy and hadn't engaged with the activities, barely even wanting to talk to her friends. Which wasn't like her.

However, she did seem to be enjoying the incredibly competitive game of wink murder that Mrs Khan was supervising, being played by the hangers on who hadn’t been hurried away during the only short break in the seemingly unrelenting sleet.

Judging by his focused poker face, Graham would say that it was Rhys that was brutally murdering the others left, right and centre. Half the kids were lying collapsed on the table or draped over chairs already. Notably the first victim had been Josh Carver himself. It was this that clued him into the fact that it was Rhys doing the killing; his older brother and friends were dead while his friends were mostly alive.

Grace startled slightly at the sudden scream as Yas was killed off.

Jemma’s over dramatic gasp of horror brought giggles from everyone in the group as Rose Tyler slitted her eyes to examine each of the still living participants. After a long moment of consideration, she pointed at Josh’s new friend River who sighed and collapsed over the desk to laughter from the group.

“So, Sunday, yeah?”

“We thought it’d be good to give them a recovery day,” Grace explained with a slightly sheepish look on her face. “Us as well. I said I’d pick Yasmin up; apparently Sonia’s molars are coming in. So, she’s screaming constantly.”

“That sounds, not good. But yeah. How about we meet by the bus station? In my experience kids like sitting at the front and with my job I can let us all go free.”

It was a typical first week trip that he had done with his kids to varying degrees of success. Most memorably little Tommy had somehow managed to switch buses without him noticing and ended up outside Hillsborough stadium with a wallet that wasn’t his and a ride in a police car. Jemma had been far more receptive and it had been the first time he’d seen her shoulders relax.

With the news that he would be giving her tonight, he desperately hoped that it would have the same effect this time around. That it may be an enjoyable activity for the others was just an added bonus.

“The 76 is a double decker as well so, yeah?”

Grace Sinclair had only chuckled at him gently through her nose. “It’s a kid’s outing. Not an SAS mission, Graham. It’ll be fine and your bus plan sounds brilliant. So, Commander O’Brian does meeting at ten thirty sharp outside the bus station with three five-year olds in tow sound like a good start to a Sunday or what?”

“Oh, absolutely, I couldn’t think of anything better.”

“I can.”

“Basically, anything right?”

The pair of them laughed together for a few seconds watching as Josh and Rhys argued about whether or not he was the murderer. Poor Najia was left attempting to stop a war as the brothers bickering turned sharper as each word left their lips, only half-joking snarls twitching at their faces.

“Do you think the others have realised that Josh knows for sure who it is?” Graham asked, hiding his laughter behind his hand. Just looking at Grace he could tell she was thinking the same thing.

Together they started sorting through the pile of papers on the table and placing them into two piles that, in his head at least, were named: things that have even a vaguely discernible identity and things that don’t. Of course, with reception age children it can be a real toss up about where each piece should go.

Naturally, they’d take all of it home. This was just narrowing down which pieces would be kept for longer than the weekend before being slid into the bin. It wasn’t that he didn’t like it. He particularly liked seeing the progression of skills. But it was a hell of a lot of poster paint to keep forever.

He raised his eyebrows at one of Ryan’s drawings. “Is that a spider. In prison?”

“Yeah, he’s not keen. But you gathered that when you talked to Kathy right?”

“Sure. But the spider prisons got a Christmas tree in the corner.”

“He doesn’t like them. But he’s a good kid so they get festivity I guess,” she sorted it into the pile of things to treasure and, presumably, go on their fridge. “Mr Pink probably asked them to draw a Christmassy picture or something and he added it at the end.”

“Guess that explains this as well then,” he said, raising his personal favourite picture up so that Grace to bask in its glory. 

“That’s a…”

“Weirdly deformed teddy bear in a Santa hat? Yep, that’s my Jemma.”

“You know, I just. I don’t get where they think of these things.”

“I know for this one at least. This is her cuddly toy. Its names Pting. I thought she was calling it ‘thing’ for weeks at first, but no.”

Grace’s lower lip blew out in a confused huff. She breathed out a laugh that plainly spoke of her confusion about the subject and smiled warmly at him.

“You’re a good man Graham O’Brian. She’s lucky to have you. Now go get the however-many of those lot that you’re walking home before we have to call PC Plod.”

Technically, he was just walking Jemma home, but as they sometimes did Josh and Rhys followed along for a few streets before wandering back to their own place. Which meant that he had to convince all three of them to leave. A quick nod to Najia allowed her to start letting the kids say goodbye.

He wouldn’t have expected breaking Jemma and Yas’s clapping game apart to be so much more difficult than stopping Josh and Rhys from egging the others into joining their argument. But here he was.

Sometimes, he was truly grateful for the way that he had managed to keep in contact with some of his old kids (ex-kids?). At the moment it depended on the second about his views. On the plus side Josh had convinced Jemma to put her coat on like a strange cape with only the button at the top keeping it on.

On the down side, Rhys had just slipped Jemma what he was fairly sure was some kind of water pistol. Either way, they were coming with him today for a bit, judging by how they had dragged the little one along to play balance on the edge of the pavement and chattering away like nobody’s business.

The minutes-long walk passed in what seemed like seconds until they were at the junction where the boys would leave. As the older kids gave Jemma semi-reluctant hugs and assurances that they would see her at the start of the next term, he reached into his bag.

Their faces were priceless and he wished he had a camera on him to capture them as they looked at the carefully wrapped presents. 

Jemma shoved her hand over her mouth to make sure she didn’t tell them what was inside the two green and white wrapped boxes. After school last week she’d helped him pick out and wrap both the gifts. She’d also been the one to carefully write happy Christmas on the inside of the cards before racing over to get him to sign his name at the bottom.

“Woah now lads! Open them on the twenty fifth hey?” he struggled to get out over the frantic stammered thank you-s the boys were pelting him with. They hadn’t been with him for Christmas last year so they weren’t expecting presents in the same way other children were.

Presents for his three other children were under his bed where, Graham would bet a good amount of money, Jemma had been sneaking to as he prepared food each evening. He really needed to send Alexander’s off for him. Tommy’s, well, Tommy’s was a lot harder to plan for seeing as how nobody was sure where he would be for Christmas.

The presents for the stocking had been stored in a far better place in an attempt to keep his curious child from finding them.

Suddenly he felt two pairs of skinny arms wrap around him. He’d got close to the pair over the few months they had spent at his place but they had never hugged him so unguardedly before and he hugged back immediately. 

Graham let his hands cup their heads protectively and as they eased away, he took the opportunity to ruffle their floppy hair, Rhys batting him away furiously.

“Alright then,” he said slowly, knowing that this would be the last guaranteed time he had to talk to them for almost a month. “You be good for your mum, okay? The last present,s for her so don’t forget to give it to her.”

“You know we can read, Graham?” Rhys said with a smirk as he fixed his hair. “Like, you do know that, right?”

“As if I could ever forget. Merry Christmas boys.”

“Do you remember how we went to the hospital?”

“That was yesterday, Graham,” she said with a withering glare through the lower branches of the semi decorated tree that would shame a disapproving aunt.

“Fair. Well, something’s wrong.”

“I know.”

He paused for what was probably too long as he tried to work out when she had found out. Maybe she’d managed to slip away from the playroom and listen into part of the meeting? It was the only time he could think of that she could overhear anything. He knew. He’d been careful.

“Everyone looked happy, then… erm,” she knitted together her brows before putting on a stern and worried expression, waving her hand in front of her face to demonstrate.

“Serious?”

“Yeah. Everyone was happy, then serious, then serious but with happy faces. That means somethings wrong.”

For all she would forget her own head if it was loose this kid was smart as sixpence. Something that was all too easy to overlook sometimes as she made up magical worlds and refused to eat her broccoli. Now was the time it would bite him in the backside.

Behind him, from the CD player, the song shifted to Wham! Graham questioned for a second whether this was an appropriate backing track to such a serious conversation. However, he also knew that if he broke away from the tree and tinsel to stop the track it would break his stride. Besides the lyrics about broken hearts were ironically fitting.

“There’s something wrong with your heart, love. I didn’t tell you cos I wanted you to have a good time at school, but there’s something wrong with your heart and you’re gonna have to spend some time in hospital.”

Jemma froze, holding a salt dough star that Graham had made himself when he was about the same age as she was now up to the branches. She clenched her jaw and looked away from Graham, trying desperately to keep her breathing calm. Probably because she didn’t want him to see how much she was freaking out.

Time to rip off the plaster.

“I’m so sorry Jemma, but you’re having surgery in the new year. After Christmas.”

“Again?”

“Yeah,” Graham said at the volume of a whisper. “Again.”

“Mum’s gonna be so mad at me,” she cried as her breathing sped up uncontrollably and tears poured into her eyes. “She’s gonna be so mad. She’s. She’s. It’s always my fault.”

“Hey, Jemma? Its not your fault. Not at all. And I don’t know how much your Mum knows but she won’t be there. I will.”

He said this firmly as he took the steps needed to reach her on her side of the tree, watching in horror as the little girl he had grown to love fell head first into a panic attack. Even as she breathed harder and continued mumbling about how it was her fault, she kept a tight hold of the ornament in her hand.

Graham’s head was going a thousand miles per hour as he tried to remember what he was meant to do rather than using his current strategy of mumbling ‘it’s okay’ on repeat, something he was pretty sure wasn’t helping. Panic attacks were something he’d dealt with when Alexander was with him but that was nearly a year and a half ago.

“Jemma, can you look at me,” he said, hopefully projecting an aura of calm as he crouched down, Jemma’s green eyes following him a few moments behind. “Oh, that’s brilliant, good job.”

“Y’know what? Let’s do some breathing.” Although, he felt like an idiot as he did these huge, elongated breaths, he could sense Jemma watching his every move. She wasn’t copying like he had hoped though and so he took a risk.

Jemma was fairly touch adverse. By which he meant that for the first two months she had stayed with him, she had bitten anyone who got too close. Now she was a lot calmer with the idea, but only when it was on her terms. He had no idea if this would make this better or worse.

Going slowly to give her time to move, he reached for her empty hand. When he met no kind of resistance, he encircled it with his own and brought it to his chest; close enough that they could both feel the rhythm of his breathing.

“Do you think you can match your breathing to mine?” he said, exaggerating his breathing to try and make it easier for her. Together they breathed with Graham counting out the breaths out loud like a child counting sheep the night before their birthday when they couldn’t sleep.

Over what felt like forever, but was more likely somewhere between three and five minutes, Jemma’s shoulders came down again. It wasn’t a fast process. More of a gradual easing as her mind started to release her. All the energy seemed to have been sapped from her limbs and she swayed slightly before practically collapsing into his arms.

From his vantage point above her he could barely make out her words, directed straight into the fabric of his jumper as he rocked her from side to side. 

“My hearts going too fast. I’m sorry, Dad. I made it worse.”

“No, you didn’t, cockle. You did nothing wrong whatsoever.”

All he could see of her were a pair of half-closed eyes; the excitement had exhausted her and he was glad for a second that he hadn’t planned anything special for the last day of school. Even as he had worried about how to break the news to her, he hadn’t anticipated such an immediate reaction, he was used to her being far more passive aggressive.

This had been terrifying and he couldn’t imagine how much worse it must have been for her. It was time for a story time spent curled up on the settee or bed depending with mugs of hot chocolate clasped in their hands.

Grace had been right; they were going to need that recovery day.


	7. Chapter 7

Their recovery day had been quiet. They had spent the majority of it wearing their pyjamas and playing snap while blue planet was on in the background. Which of the two was the main focus had changed almost every second, the longest second had been for the episode about the depths of the ocean that was weird enough to hold both their attention for a while.

Naturally, there had also been some difficult conversations carrying on from the night before with Graham having to frequently consult his leaflets and Sarah-Jane’s notes to answer questions. It was clear that Jemma still wasn’t happy but she seemed reassured by having the information.

If Graham was a betting man, he would put money on there being a rambling, only half correct explanation given to the whole gang in about seven minutes. He was extremely glad that he wasn’t driving the bus in question so he could butt in when needed with more accurate or detailed explanations.

For now, she was charming the hell out of his co-workers, to the extent that he wasn’t sure if they’d noticed her eating their wine gums.

He checked the time on his watch. Six minutes until they arrived and he had to manage to make everything as normal as it would be if it had taken place last week. In his pocket was a piece of paper with important details on it including which stop to get off at. Just in case he got distracted by something.

Jemma had just giggled when she saw it.

She’d laughed non stop for a good five minutes when she found out he had a sandwich in his pocket in case anybody got hungry before their hour was up. But what she hadn’t realised was that Graham had been very bad in scouts but had still gained the habit of never leaving for any kind of trip without food packed, just in case. 

If nothing else, it had made him very popular with the other boys in his tent, by providing a midnight feast without having to get out of their sleeping bags.

If you consider two slightly warm jam sandwiches to be a midnight feast. Since then he’d upped his standards and now had a cheese and onion sandwich wrapped in cling film in his outer pocket. He just had to hope that Rhys never found out about this.

Four minutes to go.

“You’re my honey bum, sugar plum,” he heard a young voice sing from the doors.

“You’re my honey bum, sugar bum,” Ryan replied with his eyes almost crossed from the level of focus he was putting in. Grace walked behind the two children with a fondly exasperated expression on her face

“Sugar plum,” Yaz stated with the voice of someone who is reaching the end of their tether.

“You’re my honey bum, sugar bum.”

As Yaz huffed and started to turn away she spotted Jemma sat on top of the railings and ran over to a chorus of various members of staff shouting to watch out. In the kid’s defence, she did pause and look both ways very seriously before sprinting to her friend, who leapt down onto her toes.

He smiled the three kids had reunited with the same level of drama as soldiers returning home from a war, complete with tears and hugs. One of his colleagues chuckled at their antics and offered to let them take turns sitting in the driver’s seat of the bus they would be going on, hauling those who needed it up into the vehicle.

Grace’s face twisted with barely hidden concern as Ryan struggled to find his feet but held herself back. They laughed as the driver attempted to stop Jemma and Yaz from honking the horn.

With a single breath and without words the pair moved into the bus, ushered the three children up onto the top story as they went. The general public bought their tickets downstairs like the peasants they were. Mrs Sinclair smiled down at him from the top of the stairs for a split second. December sunlight glinted off her star-shaped earings.

When he was a kid, he had loved stars, had a telescope his neighbour used to help him with and everything. Actually, he still liked stars.

Even without a mirror he could feel his ears going pink and stumbled up the corner step in a way he hadn’t done since he was a seventeen-year-old who couldn’t hold their lager. Grace turned back again and offered a hand.

“See, this is why I said I should go last.”

Graham took his hand off the railing to brush it over his face in an obvious attempt to hide his face, which he was pretty sure was as red as one of Josh’s old football strips. In a voice that could only just be distinguished from a cough he said - “C’mon, let’s go pick our seats.”

“You know the girls have already claimed the front seats,” she said with the laugh that seemed to come so easily for her. “Pretty sure Ryan’ll have been made to guard the steps.”

“Do you think we could – “

“Hide at the back and pretend we’ve never met them?”

“Say they’re running away to the circus.”

“Or they’re new recruits for a pizza delivery who don’t have motorbikes.”

They reached the end of the row and were waved over eagerly by the kids, Jemma excitedly telling the others about the first time she’d been on a bus and how Graham had let her lean against the glass on the front because it made her feel like she was flying.

“So, the row behind them.”

“Yeah.”

With bated breath they watched as Yaz made a bold attempt at skating without holding onto the railing with both hands, instead switching to just one. It had been nearly ten minutes but several fairly spectacular falls had badly shaken the trio’s confidence.

To nobody’s surprise it had been Jemma who had initially pushed off from the edge and had managed a decent speed but had not managed a decent stop and ended up crashing into a middle-aged couple who shouted for several minutes. Since then the kids had made attempts at going solo again to varying degrees of success. By which he meant length of time before they smacked into the ice.

There weren’t enough adult arms to hold each of them up as they figured out how to move their feet on the ice so the poor kids were left shuffling along the railing. It was Ryan who had started the hit new trend of desperately clinging on with both hands after a particularly impressive fall left him with a bloody nose 

Grace had visibly tensed up each time Ryan tried and failed from her position beside him. 

Jemma and Yaz had managed to pick him up most times though without intense help required. Next time he took the little blonde girl out he should make sure to bring multiple friends along as they seemed to keep her on the right track in a way he probably couldn’t manage otherwise.

Like now, as the two girls had finally figured out how to shuffle without holding on at all due to their similar levels of stubbornness. They appeared to be trying to convince Ryan that they could definitely manage to hold him up to get him away from the railing.

If it had just been him there with her, she definitely would have smacked into far more people in her excitement and possibly got banned.

On the downside it meant that there were far more people to keep an eye on, particularly now that the girls were breaking free. He at least kind of included Grace in that group and was certain that she would say the same considering how they had used tight grips as their main form of communication since buckling up the shoes.

Also, their badly supressed gasps of fear as any of the kids fell, again, sometimes synchronised so that was something. So did their quick-step-forward-no-wait when their specific child almost fell occasionally.

Unfortunately, the kids were also weirdly synchronised a lot of the time. 

This time was not one of them. It was no surprise to the adults that the well meant attempt to physically hold Ryan between them wouldn’t end well but it was quite impressive that it went so as badly as it did. He glanced at Grace who was already checking Jemma over after Ryan’s elbow flew into her eye socket on the way down as Yaz used her to climb back up.

Ten minutes before the time ran out and Jemma would allow them to call it a day.

And Graham was counting down the seconds like it was maths last thing on the Friday before the summer holidays started. At least he had more interesting things to do this time, like calming down Ryan who was back to clinging to the railing with both hands. He knew Jemma was alright; for one he trusted Grace to fix her up and for another she was crowing about how she would have a black eye tomorrow with a worrying amount of glee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a weirdly difficult chapter to write. not sure why but hey, i tried my best here


	8. Chapter 8

Silence.

For the first time in days there was a calm, contented silence.

Grace raised an eyebrow at him from across the room, indicating that she thought the longer-term ramifications of this incident would come back and haunt them. Privately, he agreed. The sugar from the marshmallows that Jemma had convinced him to let them all have would kick in in approximately ten minutes.

But for now, everybody was calm and warm and Yaz had stopped trying to poking the yellowish bruise on her chin to see if it still hurt. It was the only thing he could confidently say Jemma was more mature about. There was no way in hell she was poking a wound.

Wouldn’t stop her from milking the fact that she had also fallen over alot, in order to get more stuff at the little café they had holed themselves up in as the rain continued outside the doors. Really, it wouldn't be surprising if somebody called social services on them with the amount of load complaining about how many bruises they would have there had been.

Attempting to do it subtly, he slid his hand across the table. Using this hand, he swiped the packets of sugar that Jemma had collected to put into her hot chocolate away from her. In response she simply pulled more packets out of her pocket and deposited them straight into her drink, paper and all.

“My mummy says sugar rots your teeth until they fall out,” Yaz informed them to a very solemn nod from Ryan.

“Yeah, and they make your brain go all fizzy,” Ryan said.

“Don’t care.”

It was a good thing that Grace was there with him, seeing as how she was a nurse and actually understood these things. And its not like he hadn’t attempted to stop her from eating her body weight in sugar each day but it just went in one ear and out the other.

“Okay,” Grace said with a shrug, Graham tried not to frown. If Grace accepted it then he would never have peace again. “But, because there’s a cake worth of sugar in that mug then I’m afraid you’ve hit your limit already.”

“No cake?”

“No cake.” Grace confirmed.

Jemma paused and seemed to be puzzling over this turn of events to herself. Her nose scrunched up as Ryan and Yaz started a conversation about which of the many cake options available they would prefer.

“I should have cake though because I’m gonna die.”

The cake conversation died down rapidly with a quick shush from Ryan who was glancing between his nan and friend with a frown. To her credit, Grace didn’t gasp in shock or horror, instead she gave an ironic smile.

“We’re all going to die Jemma, doesn’t mean you can eat all the sugar you want.” 

“No! I’m really gonna die. They’re gonna open me all the way up and fix my heart so the bad heart doesn’t kill me but surgery’s really bad too. So, I’m probably gonna die.”

You had to hand it to her; this kid really knew how to silence a room. This time Grace couldn’t hide her shock properly, she turned to look at him in confusion as if to ask if any of this was true or if it was just a kid with an overactive imagination.

“Jems, you’ve had surgery before and you didn’t die now did you?”

“…no. But mum was there that time and now she’s not.”

“I know. But I’ll be there the whole time, right? So, it’ll be okay.”

“I guess,” the little girl said with a strand of hair in her mouth.

“Okay then, Well, can you go help Ryan and Yaz choose their cakes? I saw some tiny little gingerbread men by the counter so you can have one of them.”

Kids were great, Graham thought to himself, as they went off chattering among themselves. From his vantage point at the table he could see Ryan and Yaz have a small scuffle over the last piece of millionaire’s shortbread. Jemma noticed him watching and exaggeratedly stepped away from the cake counter with innocent eyes.

With a smile on his lips he turned back to his cuppa. Having stirred and drank he looked up and startled at the look Grace was giving him. It was neither intense nor relaxed; both eyebrows up in a never-ending list of questions. 

“Jemma’s having heart surgery in the new year.”

“Okay. Heart condition?”

“Yeah,” he said and broke the eye contact to look down at his cup. Sometimes it freaked him out how many habits he picked up from his kids. This was all Jemma’s influence, normally he was pretty good at carrying on even if its awkward.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Grace said with a shrug and a gentle smile. “What happened to her mum? Sounds like she misses her.”

“It comes and goes; gets all messed up in her head y’know?”

She did the eyebrow thing again to say that she truly did not know. It was tinged with a heavier dose of compassion than the last face she pulled. Probably used it on all kinds of patients of hers in order to get more information. She’d make a cracking spy.

“I’m her foster dad. She’s – she’s in care.”

“Huh,” was her only verbal response as she looked over at where Jemma was crouched down and petting a terrier whose owner was standing in line. “Tough kid.”

“Yeah. Bright though and stubborn. Makes me laugh.”

When he had been newer at this whole parenting lark, he had been far more open with his role in the children’s lives. In his experience it was either the words ‘foster’ or ‘care’ that meant that his kid wasn’t invited to any of the birthday parties or sleepovers. He didn’t always mind but there had been the occasion when someone had found out the day invites were being handed out and the then-seven-year-old Tommy’s card remained poking out the parent’s bag.  
Now he didn’t tell people unless something like this came up. He wasn’t about to lie to everybody; it would take so much work to coordinate the lies if nothing else. But he didn’t come out with it as part of his introduction anymore.

He hadn’t introduced him and Jemma to the other parents as “This is Jemma. I’m Graham, her foster dad.” Instead he just let them make their own assumptions. Some went straight to dad, others thought grandparent, uncle or neighbour. It didn’t matter to him and to be perfectly honest, most of the time they didn’t share their assumptions anyway.

But that fear of somebody looking at Jemma differently was filling him up to the brim and so he started rattling off her various attributes like he was at some kind of interview. His mastermind topic: things Jemma Smith is good at.

“She’s good with Ryan too. Really patient, never laughs or anything like that.”

That wasn’t him talking. It was Grace. He followed her gaze to where the children were lining up. Technically, the were going to the till as a group but that hadn’t stopped them going in one-by-one like they were in the canteen at school.

“She thinks the world of you,” Grace said, still looking at the kids. With a jolt he noticed Jemma reaching for the cold fizzy drinks and stood up, his chair scraping against the floor with a horrible noise. It drew the kids’ attention and Jemma pulled her hand away with a sheepish grin before falling into heaps of giggles with Yaz.

Presumably, it had been some kind of dare they had come up with.

By the time he looked back from the pair, Grace was already looking at him. The smile she had on her face was familiar even if he couldn’t place it, like it was something his brain had already grown accustomed too. Not that he minded. It was a lovely smile; full of fondness.

When she saw him looking she immediately looked down at her empty coffee mug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1000 thank yous to the another-doctor-who-blog.tumblr for this awesome art of the younguns](https://another-doctor-who-blog.tumblr.com/post/626529660822503424/hello-i-am-obsessed-with-this-foster-kid-fic)


	9. Chapter 9

“Wake up, buttercup!” Honestly, the only day that Jemma had decided to have a lie in and they needed to do things in the morning. Any other day she would have been up, dressed, eaten and halfway through making a rocket out of a cardboard box by the time shows had started playing on the children’s channel.

But not today apparently.

Instead he was trying to get this child up and about so she could either help him with the other side of the room or at the very least not be in the way. He glanced over at the other side and winced at how much stuff had been abandoned on the other bed. In fairness it wasn’t like anybody was using the bed so it was a dumping ground for pencils and clothes at the moment.

But now they had to get it ready for somebody else. Deep down he had known all along. No social worker asks you to be ready ‘just in case’ something would happen if they weren’t pretty damn sure that it would. And it did.

Little Tommy Hughes who was probably now a head taller than the last time Graham had seen him was coming to stay. Supposedly just for Christmas but if he knew that kid’s social worker at all then Tommy would be staying for the foreseeable future.

From underneath her stripy duvet cover Jemma groaned something about having a temperature and how she definitely couldn’t get up. A quick check with the back of his hand confirmed that she was just making it all up. Miss Smith was practically allergic to any form of cleanliness; getting her in the bath was a hassle on a good day and so getting her to clean the room would be a nightmare.

“C’mon up, you’re getting a new roommate today.”

That had got her attention and so she stuck her head out from under the covers, hair matted onto her head from the night. He just nodded and directed her down to the kitchen where he was pretty sure she could make her own cereal.

With a sigh he faced the room he now had to cope with. The social worker hadn’t exactly been clear about when Tommy would be arriving so he had to work fast and work generic. There just wasn’t time to put in personal touches and things like that, which was a pity considering how they’d lived together before and he even had some of the boy’s artwork in a cupboard somewhere.

For now, it was cleaning that he had to focus on. Starting with the bed.

It had impressive piles of stuff over it and footprints from when Rhys and Harold had played the floor is lava on laundry day. Easy to deal with overall. Ignoring the creaks of protest from his back he lifted the mattress until the socks and papers fell onto the floor with several soft thuds and flipped it over.

Like he said there had been an impressive amount of stuff on the bed. It was now just on the floor where, with a bit of luck, Jemma would be willing to help sort it out.

Downstairs he could hear a painful amount of clattering and shuddered to think about what state the kitchen would be in when he went down. Perhaps he was going about this all the wrong way. Who knew and quite frankly who cared? He had started like this and so it would be how he finished.

The fact that he would also have to clean up the kitchen after dealing with the kids’ bedroom had already been totally compartmentalised into the not right now kind of problem.

“Jemma, you alright down there?” he called as he marched to the laundry cupboard.

“All good,” was the response, muffled by the rooms separating them. He didn’t believe her for a second but trusted her to let him know if there was something that needed doing or she had somehow injured herself in the process. “Can I have some coco pops?”

“Just this once.”

After a moment or two of searching he found Tommy’s old favourite duvet cover. It was covered in planets and stars and a thin layer of dust. The planets had smiley faces and it might be far too babyish for the nine-year-old but he figured that they could switch it out pretty easily if needed.

There were a ridiculous amount of duvet covers in that cupboard, even if you ignored Graham’s it was still a fair number. He had the generic stripes, spots and block colours you would expect but he also had ones that matched the interests or preferences of his kids.

Only Alexander and Tommy’s special bedding had been left behind; the Carver brothers had asked to take theirs home with them. So, both the planets and the Rolling Stones duvets had been abandoned and buried underneath anything else. Come to think of it he still needed to get Jemma a special set, it was practically a rite of passage at this point.

If Tommy’s cotton planets had been left as a hidden remnant of a time gone by, its return felt symbolic in a way he couldn't figure out. To think if he hadn’t stress sorted the cupboard the day before Jemma’s hospital appointment, he never would have rediscovered it.

“What did you do to the room?” Jemma asked from behind him where she had managed to appear without a single sound. That kid had a terrifying ability to sneak up on you, it wasn’t even like she was trying to most of the time as well. Didn’t stop him from jumping out of his skin.

“Well I had to clear the bed so…” there wasn’t really a logical way to explain ‘I just shoved it off’ when he knew he should have sorted it first. “I’m gonna need your help sorting, okay?”

When he turned to look, he saw Jemma standing in the doorway, a look of total confusion all over her face and milk stains all down her purple pyjamas. Seeing her so forlorn in a drowned kitten kind of way stopped him in his tracks for a second as he looked her over.

This was exactly why he didn’t let her make and eat food unsupervised. One or other she could do without any issue but both and there would be some kind of incident.

Another casualty of food stains to add to the laundry he guessed as he ushered her into her room to get her changed and ready to go. By the time she had huffed enough about her dungaree straps to consider asking for help he had put the cover onto the bed. From this angle it was practically ready, just needed a wide down of the general vicinity.

He had accepted at this stage that the faded biro physics written on the walls were here to stay.

With the duvet cover pulled halfway over the pillow like how his mother had taught him to do it back in Essex and the world map stuck over the bed in its pride of place it almost looked like a regular bedroom.

But tragically, he did need to turn and when he did, he saw Jemma sat cross legged and flicking through an old piece of homework about the alphabet. Time for battle stations. He crouched down and started gathering up the random pieces of paper to put in a drawer and never see again.

“Can you pick up all the clothes Jemma? And put them on a pile?”

“Do socks count as clothes?”

“Do you wear them?”

There was a long pause and just as his heartrate started picking up as he thought through the implications of if she hadn’t been wearing socks this whole time a confident voice chimed in from the other side of the room saying “Yes.”

“Then yes. Onto the pile.”

She nodded fiercely. It was the only method that even kind of worked for her; the moment she realised that by sorting things she was actually cleaning the game was up and he would be toast. Up until that second, she was a pretty decent worker, methodically working through the pile on the floor as he moved to take the papers downstairs with a discarded mug in his other hand.

“Hey, Graham, look at this!”

Ah, so that’s where her sheet of copied letters from her first week went. Jemma’s face had lit up and she carefully traced the letters on the page in amazement at how she hadn’t know how to write an h four months ago.

Jemma had gone quiet again. At the moment she seemed to swing between silent and grumpy to aggressively cheerful at a moments notice. Which, given the circumstances was pretty understandable.

It didn’t help that Tommy hadn’t arrived yet.

Looking out the gap between the curtains, Graham could see that it was fully dark now. Not surprising seeing as how it was six o’clock during winter but after all that worry put into getting ready for another kid it felt strange that it was dark and it was just them in the house.

They’d put out the clean bedding, tidied the room up and even scrubbed the physics graffiti off the bedroom walls even as Jemma got him to say a pretend funeral service for it.

All in all, he got why Jemma was feeling a bit frustrated. By the time it was all ready for the young boy to come and live there it was only just gone lunchtime.

And now it was dark outside and they were eating tea.

“C’mon then, lets plate up,” he said to Jemma from where he was stirring the cheese into the pot of pasta on the hob. He briefly wondered whether plain ketchup and cheese on pasta counted as a good quality meal that social workers would approve of – maybe he should have added some peas from the freezer.

Neither of the two of them commented on the fact that only tow of the three bowls that had been put out with care were being used. Instead they just ate in tired stillness and occasionally made dull comments about the weather and other assorted pieces of small talk.

“What’s he like?” Jemma said through a mouthful of pasta, choking on the final word until her face started going red and she was forced to take a swig of the much-hated glass of water to clear her throat.

“Tommy?” at the nod from across the room he thought for a second before choosing his answer carefully – he didn’t want to paint the wrong picture for Jemma, after all, eighteen months was a very long time and there was no saying that he wouldn’t have changed. “Well, he’s pretty funny. Makes good jokes, y’know.”

“Does he like knock knock jokes?”

“You could try for sure,” in reality Tommy was far more of a funny comment dropped into the middle of a conversation. Often sarcastic and biting, but funny none the less. He’d been far more popular than he’d realised at school; sure, he only hung out with Rose and Mickey but everyone seemed to get along with him. There had been lots on inquiries after him when he left.

Realising that Jemma was waiting expectantly for him with her fork raised halfway to her mouth, he continued. “And he’s smart, really bright. Like you. He’s…” how the hell do you phrase has emotional regulation issues that sometimes display as aggression when he might have changed?

The social worker himself had reassured him that it would be safe for him to stay with other children when they called. Not that he had asked but Graham assumed they thought he was scared.

If he could deal with a load of football thugs on matchday trying to get half price fares he could cope with a traumatised kid. The only problem was that he now had another traumatised kid to think about and he hadn’t been totally sure Jemma would cope with one of his bigger outbursts. But they had reassured him that he was coping with his anger in a better way now, he didn't completely trust them to tell him the truth but he had to take their word for it.

“He’s passionate. Really cares about things. Not big into football.”

Jemma somehow both giggled and rolled her eyes at that. Football was something she enjoyed playing but had no other interest in. No doubt she would be very happy to know she wouldn’t have someone trying to hypnotise her into supporting a certain team again like Josh had.

“Why don’t you tell one of your knock knock jokes now, eh, cockle?”

As he should have expected Jemma looked at him like he’d grown an extra head; normally, he would tolerate her bad jokes but wouldn’t ask for them. But hey, he’d run out of things to say that he thought wouldn’t cloud her view on Tommy and he thought would still be true.

He desperately hoped that the social worker would call to say if Tommy was coming or if it had all been somehow smoothed over. Just so he knew and this awkwardness would end. It hadn’t been as awkward as this when Jemma first arrived, though it had been a pretty close thing, and he hated it more than he could comprehend. Judging by the little girl’s face, Jemma felt the same about the whole situation.

So, he did what he does best and got out something to distract them. The checkers board he had taught both Jemma and Tommy how to use.

When she saw it, she smiled and began laying the pieces out with a passion that really didn’t fit what was going on, but he wasn’t complaining. Already the awkwardness was fading into a debate about who should be which colour and the merits of both with Graham saying he should be red because of West Ham’s colours and Jemma disagreeing because she likes red more than black.

It was about halfway through their fourth game that the doorbell rang.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the literal description of this chapter in my notes is
> 
> GRAHAM AND JEMMA PREPARE A BED FOR TOMMY COS I CANNOT BE ARSED TO WRITE THE PHONE CALL WHERE THEY FIND OUT MY BOY IS COMING TO STAY


	10. Chapter 10

Tommy was quiet, far quieter than Graham remembered him being. That, combined with how quiet Jemma had turned since he had sat down, made things a bit awkward.

The boy’s hair flicked out at his ears, longer than it had been last year and Tommy kept trying to push it flat against his head with a glare. Whenever this happened, he would let out a soft huff and then blow on his rapidly cooling cup of tea with a rueful twitch crossing over his face. On another child they would look like cheeky smirks.

Graham winced when he thought how this kid didn’t look like he’d had a decent night’s sleep since the last time he’d seen him. Might explain why he seemed so much more subdued than before; he simply didn’t have the energy to do anything.

If you put the effort into looking, it was easy to see how rough the last year had been on him. His eyes flicked around the room at every movement or sound, zeroing in on Jemma, the unfamiliar part of the situation. Even as he sunk into the settee, his body remained tense like he was expecting to have to jump up at any given second.

Graham liked to think he was a pretty smart guy all things considered but he wasn’t sure if this was standard for a kid who had been through as many houses as Tommy had or if there was something more sinister going on. By the time Tommy had been in this house for this long last time Graham had been sworn at multiple times.

He had barely spoken so far today.

A more naïve man would think that he was just minding his ps and qs in a new place but Graham wasn’t sure. He hadn’t been arrogant enough to think that, because Tommy had stayed here before it would all automatically be alright, but he wasn’t expecting this.

Perhaps it was because there was another kid in the same house this time. In a way, he hoped that was it, because it would mean that they could figure it out. Make sure he spends time with each of the kids and give them safe places where they could get away for a while. 

Jemma was watching Tommy almost as carefully as he was watching her from her position sat with her back against the radiator but with a far worse ability to hide it.

They were acting like a pair of street dogs that had been plonked into the same cage by some well-meaning dog rescuers, even though they had never met and didn’t trust each other not to physically kill them in cold blood. It wasn’t like his living room was large but they had still managed to get a good six foot of distance between them. 

For almost the whole time they had been sat with their tea and biscuits her fingers had been drumming in a steady pattern against her drawn in legs. Then, she let out a yawn that they would both laugh at if it was another day.

It stretched her face out far enough that she had a double chin and forced her to stretch like a cat in the sun. Once she had settled back into her previous position she gave a satisfied nod.

Graham glanced at the clock and tensed his jaw in panic. It might be the holidays, and it might be an exciting day but there was still a five-year-old downstairs even though it was gone nine o’clock. The time pressed down onto his knees as he thought through the options.

They essentially came down to both or one at a time.

And Graham didn’t feel like he knew the stranger sat next to him well enough to decide if it was a good idea or not. 

After all, nine is a tricky age; too young to be a teenager but too old to be a little kid. There was a solid chance that Tommy would feel offended by having the same bedtime as somebody half their age. Particularly if he had the same sleeping problems as he had had before. It only took one look at the boy’s eyes to know that they were at least the same, if not worse.

“Jemma, think its time you should be in bed.”

Although she groaned, she didn’t fight it. Instead she stood in front of Graham with her hand stretched out to him, asking for him to come with her. 

Change was something that she found difficult, so it would be best to keep her bedtime routine of story-drink-bed intact. Trying not to turn his head, Graham flicked   
his eyes towards Tommy who was watching them intently. More specifically he was boring a hole into Graham. He had no idea what the correct procedure was, the next few seconds could make or break this whole situation.

After a seconds’ thought he took Jemma’s hand.

He had to treat this as much like any other day as possible, for both their sakes, so he didn’t make Jemma anxious or Tommy feel like he was causing any kind of disruption. Tomorrow he would try and figure out how to make bedtimes work for the three of them so that he actually wasn't.

“You get another half hour cos you’re older, okay Tommy boy?”

For the first time in the night the boy raised his eyes to look at him. Somehow, he had forgotten just how blue they were. The kid nodded with a deliberate twitch of his face that Graham was certain was a smile this time.

“See you in a while, eh, crocodile?”

“Yeah, I’ll be back down in a bit.”

A light shadow passed over Tommy’s eyes and Graham felt as though he had failed a test, he didn’t know he had been taking. Like something out of a nightmare left over from his school days when he stressed about his exams so much his mum would take him out on long walks by the waterfront to make fun of the tourists.

“Said it to Jemma, not you.”

As he said this, he managed to wave cheerily at Jemma as she ran up the stairs on all fours, while still giving Graham enough of a side eye for him to wonder about if it was a good idea to leave the knives unattended. The duality of man. This one had always been intense, in a way it was comforting to know that he still had the ability to make Graham feel as though his eyes were staring straight into his soul.

Well, on the bright side, Graham could safely say that Tommy didn’t have an issue with Jemma staying with them. On the down side, he was pretty sure that Tommy’s issue was with him instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this ones a bit short (and its been a while). i finally got to meet my nephew and basically didn't put him down for a week so


	11. Chapter 11

Oh, Dear God Almighty. 

Wait.

Was it bad to think that on Christmas eve after the youngest member of the household had demanded he sing Away in a Manger with her before bed? Graham wasn’t sure but he felt like it was justified. His much-missed nana would probably disagree but sometimes you have to take your stand on these kinds of matters.

It was already past eleven o’clock at night, they had nearly finished the Jackie Chan movie on BBC1 and Tommy seemed no closer to sleep than he had four hours ago.

More importantly though, he hadn’t wrapped the presents for the stockings. It didn’t sound like much but he’d already heard Jemma yabbering away to Tommy about how you get special presents if you’re good. What with both of their self-esteem issues he considered it to be vital he didn’t let them think that they had been bad this year.

Sure, Jemma might have had a tantrum that lasted a good twenty minutes about not having enough Cheerios and Tommy might have thrown the remote at the wall because they’d changed the TV schedule, but that doesn’t mean they were bad kids. 

Besides, if Graham had turned on the telly expecting to see Antiques Roadshow and instead there was some comedy lineup put on just for Christmas he’d throw a fit too. The remote was a bit much in his opinion, so he’d taken Tommy out to the hallway for a quick but firm chat and given Jemma the power to choose what they’d watched. Neither of the two standard members of the household had been surprised by what she’d picked.

Stitch’s antics had been enough to draw a smile out Tommy though.

All in all, a win win situation.

But that had been hours ago and they were still here. Jemma had solemnly voiced a compliant that Tommy had been tossing and turning all night at breakfast, it had been noisier than she had expected. So, sticking him in bed probably wasn’t the solution to this issue.

It was difficult to brainstorm ways to help this boy learn to sleep better. Particularly on the day of the year that it was hardest to get even the best sleeper to go to bed. 

Every now and then the boy would stretch his shoulders back with a wince as though he was preparing for a marathon. His face would tense up as he swallowed the yawn caught in the back of his throat.

“You should get to bed when the credits start,” he started.

Give him a clear schedule for when this late night was expected to end while not demanding his immediate compliance. Tommy raised a shoulder sullenly and Graham wondered if this was what he had been like as a kid. He assumed that he had at least reached his teenage years before he started doing it.

“Or else Santa won’t come,” Tommy mumbled into his arm, although the arm didn’t hide the smirk in his voice.

“Very true that.”

“Of course.”

Now that Jemma had been safely out of earshot for a good few hour, Tommy had finally started letting out the true sarcasm he felt about the subject out.

“Thanks,” Graham tried. “For not, y’know, letting Jemma know.”

“She’s just little, Graham.”

“Still, it was good of you.”

Let it never be thought that Tommy Hughes didn’t have discresion when needed; not only had he tolerated Jemma showing him the pictures from when she met the Father Christmas down in Woolworths but also had set out mince pies and carrots for the main event. They’d already managed to irritate each other through nothing but eye contact but Graham was pretty sure Jemma had found yet another protector in this world.

Sometimes Graham found it funny. For all their abilities to wind each other up and even provoke each other into straight up fighting, his kids all managed to do the nice part of sibling relationships as well. Most people just didn’t see that bit.

He dreaded the day Tommy and Alexander met officially. He was pretty sure the police would have to be called at some stage.

On screen Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson were going after some train robbers in an entertaining final scene that neatly full circled the start of the movie with a dramatic musical swell. With wide eyes Tommy glanced over, realising that his time was rapidly running out.

“Want some help with the whole Father Christmas thing?”

And Graham didn’t think about how he really should stick to his guns with the whole bedtime thing or if he should attempt to keep the magic of Christmas alive

Instead he just thought about how this was the first time Tommy was showing an interest in non-TV time with him.

The kid had even initiated the conversation.

So, he agreed immediately and soon discovered that neither of them was sure how you were meant to wrap chocolate coins. The whispered discussion almost felt like nothing had changed since before Tommy left. They even managed to joke about the duvet cover, though, unless he was very much mistaken, he was pretty sure he detected a hint of sincerity.

“Little kids are so stupid,” Tommy said under his breath as he shoved a satsuma down the bottom of Jemma’s green stocking. There was a strange bite to his words.

“She’s five”

“I didn’t believe this when I was five.”

“Huh,” Graham said, remembering how he used to have to check under the bed for ghosts every evening. “You believed in the tooth fairy before.”

“Yeah, I was stupid.”

“You were six,” Graham said with a reminiscent chuckle. He watched as Tommy’s jaw unclenched with a painful looking spasm. “You were allowed to believe in things.”

Silence filled the gap again, broken only by the endless ticking of the clock on top of the mantlepiece and the quiet rustling of paper as he wrapped a pack of crayons in snowflake paper. A few seconds passed before he realised that Tommy’s hands had stilled and now lay as motionless as the rest of his body.

“Remember when you put the fifty p back under the pillow cos you wanted a refund? You were so mad when it was still there the next day.”

The boy didn’t respond. It was a pity considering how tightly Graham had held onto that memory; how they’d gone down to this little corner shop and bought three packets of rainbow drops and a fudgy-wudgy with the money. Graham remembered it as the first time he’d managed one of Tommy’s outbursts in a productive manner.

Once the moment had passed even Tommy had agreed that it had been a funny thing to do, completely believing Graham’s spur of the moment invention about the tooth fairy’s strict no returns policy.

He wondered how many teeth Tommy had lost since.

Which one was the one that cemented to the seven year old that the tooth fairy wasn’t real to him? Had anybody tried to keep it going so that it was just the natural realisation that the world wasn’t quite as magic as he had thought before? Or was it just that nobody could be bothered and the tooth had still been there when he woke up the next day?

When Tommy had been taken away, he’d had a wobbly tooth and regularly threatened to tie it to a door and slam it but had been too scared of the probable pain to go through with it.

That kid with the cheeky grin stretching from ear to ear seemed so far away now, although he wasn’t gone altogether. Last night when he’d looked in on the kids, he’d seen Tommy laughing as he traced the planets on his duvet cover. It had been quiet; he had been considerate with his new roommate. 

This morning he’d made his bed so that the plain blue side of the cover was facing up. The two parts didn’t add up and the longer they were sat without a small, blonde buffer the more it was stressing him out.

“I’ve missed you, y’know,” he tried gently. No eye contact and ideally as little pressure as possible.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Sure, I did, didn’t have anyone to do Easter with. I’d been looking forward to it.”

“Nah.”

At least he’d started moving again. Graham could just register how he was continuing to fill the stocking. Slightly aggressively, now he came to think about it. Those packages would be battered when Jemma unwrapped them tomorrow morning.

“Why’d you think I wouldn’t miss you?”

Now he yelled, that emotion coming out all over again, along with a spray of spit that flicked onto his shirt collar. Graham had to focus in order not to brush it off and stop the kid from saying what he clearly needed to. Didn’t mean a small section of his brain wasn’t panicking about what he would do if Jemma woke up and found them with half-filled stockings everywhere.

“They said – they just took me out from school. Brought me my stuff shoved in a stupid Tesco’s bag. Not even all my stuff.”

“Tommy, Tommy, look at me,” it took all of his instincts not to take him by the shoulders. “I didn’t know either. I had to call the social workers when you weren’t there after school.”

It was too much for the little boy. If he was being honest with himself it was too much for him as well. They’d both been trying to work out what happened. All he now knew for sure was that he would be making several phone calls.

He’d assumed that Tommy had made a complaint. 

Apparently not. He hadn’t done anything wrong after all. Across from where he was sitting he saw the boy cave in on himself, his bright eyes were whirling around the room like clouds during one of those storms he would go down and watch as a young man.

“I’m sorry Tommo. I’d told the office that the doctor’s thought – well, they thought there might be something wrong with me. It’s not, I’m fine,” he added at Tommy’s startled glance. “I guess they thought I wouldn’t be able to look after you. I didn’t ask them to take you away, I promise.”

“I didn’t get to say bye.”

“I know, cockle.”

“And they didn’t grab my library book about those…”

“Meteoroids. Don’t worry, I took it back before it’s due back day.”

He stood up without warning. It was obvious he was trying not to cry; the heavy intake of breath gave it away and either way he was just at that age that boys started properly thinking emotions were weaknesses. Didn’t help them at all.

“I’m gonna go to bed now, Graham.”

“You don’t want to finish these stockings with me?”

Do not make any reference to the highly charged emotions that were still fizzing around in the air or how both their eyes were watery. The two of them were only just becoming reconciled and he didn’t want to rock the boat too much with these things. But he also didn’t want Tommy to feel like he had to hide every feeling that he had.

“Don’t want to ruin the magic y’know. This way if I wake Jemma up she doesn’t see stockings. And I’m not sure what presents are going in what. Adds to the surprise.”

“You’re a good kid. You know that Tommy?”

“Nah.”

Even though he denied it in the indifferent way that not quite teenagers sometimes adopt when they’re trying to be cool, Graham could see his shoulders loosen up as he tried to make sure only the carpet could see his smile.

“Yeah, you are. Now head to bed.”

“Well, now I don’t want to.”

Graham didn’t have to turn his head to know that he was part way up the stairs. Each word of his sentence had been punctuated by a muffled step onto the staircase, eventually followed by a gentle chuckle that was oddly similar to his own.

Accepting to look after two primary school children over Christmas had to have been the worst decision Graham had made in a good while.

It was only quarter to seven and he could already hear the kids arguing next door. Jemma had decided that she wasn’t as keen on satsumas as she had been the day before and had thrown hers at Tommy. It was that or she was worried about his vitamin C intake.

He wouldn’t put it past her but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be a true case of the pot calling the kettle black if it was. Every time they were in the health aisle of Tesco Graham would briefly wonder if he should buy her some multi-vitamins. The moment he started questioning that he would come to the revelation that trying to get her to take any more pills than was one hundred percent necessary was a chore he was unwilling to deal with

Naturally, Tommy had responded by throwing his new socks at her head. 

They’d been throwing balls of wrapping paper at each other ever since. The monotony was occasionally broken by the sound of something heavier hitting the wall.  
He knew they were trying to be considerate. If they weren’t, they would have come through to annoy him by now. Alexander sure had.

But he could still be irritated.

At one particularly loud thud he switched on the table lamp and rubbed the dust out from the corner of his eye. It was always brighter than it should be whenever he turned the light of and it hurt his eyes, so he kept his eyes closed for a few seconds after turning the switch.

When he opened his eyes again, he was forced to laugh.

Next to his door was one of his stripy socks, literally bulging at the seams from the presents that had been stuffed in by immature hands. From where he was sitting, he could see some kind of badly wrapped pen sticking out from the top.

Once he had resettled himself on his bed with his unexpected stocking, he quickly unwrapped the pen and smiled. A biro with only half the ink left. If he was under any doubt about the fact that this wasn’t a rogue Santa catering to adults. 

The further through the presents he got the more he had to stop himself from laughing and alerting the children next door to the fact that he was awake. As much as he loved the pair of them that didn’t stop him from wanting a few more minutes before the Christmas excitement was unleashed on him. There was a fair amount of chocolate in their stockings and the sugar high would be stunning.

There was a rolled-up puzzle book to go with the pen. From the living room no less. Half the puzzles filled in for his convenience.

A plastic finger doll like the kind that parents put into party bags from kids’ birthday parties.

Chocolates and a satsuma straight from the kitchen cupboards. The ones he’d left so that he could sneak treats for the next few nights.

And one of the many salt dough stars Jemma and Yaz had made over at the Khan’s flat a few weekends ago to put on the tree.

The whole stocking had obviously been put together after Graham had been to bed by the boy in the room next to him insulting a small girl about her new stripy socks. Who had been so hurt about a miscommunication for so long. Now, Graham wasn’t an idiot and recognised this gift as the olive branch that it was. 

“Oh, I wonder if anyone else is awake,” he said loudly.

A strange stillness came across the house as the kids processed how deliberate the noise he just made. He almost felt bad about how he had broken up their laughter and bickering. They sounded like how he and his cousins had joked about and annoyed each other whenever they got together.

“Do you think Grahams awake?” Jemma whisper-shouted as Tommy tried to hide his sniggers.

It had been less than a minute since he had chosen to let them know they didn’t have to worry about disturbing him and he already sort of regretted it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shout out to my dad who gave me suggestions about what tommy put in the stocking


	12. Chapter 12

Jemma was flicking the strings hanging from the hood of her new coat experimentally as he turned the car into the gravelled carpark. On the other side of the car Tommy gazed vacantly out of the window, bobbing his knee to the CD of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits playing in the car radio. He was bare armed, some kind of Christmas tradition he had.

The shorts were a bit much. Even without any snow it was absolutely Baltic.

Graham was certain that it would only feel colder once they were up on the hills without the car to protect them from the chill. For that reason, and because he was what Alexander had constantly called a softie, he had brought a spare pair of tracksuit bottoms and an old-fashioned jumper that his mother had sent him.

It made sense really. Tommy was the only one of his kids to spend any real time with his mother and they had hit it off. There had been simple presents sent for both the birthdays and the Christmas that he had been away.

Well, Graham supposed, she had spent a fair proportion of his adult life making it clear that she expected grandchildren. Now that he was in his mid-forties she had given up. That didn’t stop her from badgering him to bring Jemma down to Essex. He had no idea how she had found out that her little prince would be with them for Christmas in time to send presents to go under the tree alongside Jemma’s. But he had to grant that she still had good taste in music.

Perhaps he could take Jemma down during half term. 

Hopefully she should be recovered enough from the surgery to enjoy it, and besides, in old movies they always say how good the sea air is for improving someone’s health. Being beaten up by idiots after school hadn’t done him any good but he had always liked going down to the waterside and making up backstories for the boats tied to the walkway.

He didn’t even let himself wonder about if Tommy would still be with them. Everyone had made it clear that this was a short-term solution. Then again, Rhys and Josh had been a short-term placement as well.

They’d stayed with him for months. They’d become part of his family and although they’d never met her, his mother would ask after them occasionally. Alexander too.

All in all, his kids had a fantastic unofficial grandmother. It was unfortunate that they didn’t get to see her more often, for their sakes and hers. You could tell that she had finally accepted his choices in full, even if she would rather, he moves back to Essex.

His thoughts had taken him the whole way into his parking space, which he had pulled into, forced to stop jerkily when he noticed how close he was to the edge of the gravel. From behind him he could hear Jemma already clicking her seatbelt undone and practically attacking the door handles to get out. With a laugh he spotted Tommy rolling his eyes through the rear-view mirror.

By the time Graham had reached the other side of the car Jemma had run far enough that he had to raise his voice to tell her not to run past the gate.

Luckily for him, Tommy was being more relaxed in his approach; shoving his hands deep into his pockets and trying to pretend that there weren’t rows of goosebumps covering his arms. The pair of them watched with entertainment as Jemma started towards a woman with a dog.

“She’s gonna kill them,” Tommy remarked.

“Yeah,” Graham replied as they reached the gate themselves. “Gotta be rough for them.”

Tommy snorted into his fist before screwing his face up as a yawn forced its way out. The kid had been fairly bleary eyed all morning, only sparking up when Jemma made Graham wear the pasta necklace she’d made him in school. And, although Graham was fairly confident that it was a longer term problem to be dealing with, he was also certain that the leniancy brought on by his recent move as well as general holiday routine wans't helping the situation.

“Back to normal bedtimes tonight eh?”

“Rather not.”

Well, he really should have expected something like that. Give a kid some self-confidence and they'll start standing up for themselves. It was good to see Tommy returning back to his normal behaviour from before even if it would lose its appeal soon. It was a good thing that the boy had a decent sense of comedic timing to make the whole situation more entertaining.

It was like what the other parents used to say about him after he went to visit their kids after school. He had a real knack for phrasing things in a way that was just funny enough to make you go along with his ideas with a smile instead of negotiations.

“Alright then, one last night of freedom. Make the most of it.”

“Gonna plaster the ceiling in those shiny stocking stars.”

“Jemma’ll love that.”

“Put one on her forehead as she sleeps.”

“Too far, kid.”

The rock Graham was leant on felt like a block of ice. He was glad someone was there with him so he didn’t have to think about it too much. 

By some kind of happy coincidence that Graham had discovered only when Jemma started screeching like a possessed pterodactyl, the entire Sinclair clan was doing their traditional walk. So, while Jemma and Tommy tried in vain not to show how much they disliked Aaron Sinclair he got to sit and commentate with Grace.

As they watched, Aaron took his hands-off Ryan’s shoulders with a forced cheer. In the short time it took for Ryan to tumble off his new bike, the older man had already turned away to give what he probably thought was a winning grin at the rest of them.

To be fair to the guy the moment that he realised Ryan was now on the frosted grass instead of the bike he went over to help him out. It was just unfortunate that it took him long enough to realise that he was unneeded; Jemma was attempting to haul him to his feet while Cathy, his mum, spoke to him and Tommy watched warily from the side-lines, ready to jump in at any point.

Technically, he and Grace were also on the side-lines ready to jump in at any point.

All in all, this kid had a lot of people rooting for him as he climbed back onto the bike with a grin unnervingly like his fathers, only with an easy shyness that made it a thousand times more pleasant to look at. 

And with his mother holding tight to his shoulders to keep his balance going and two children jogging alongside him, the smile stayed glued to his face for a few seconds.

Beside him, Grace sighed softly.

“I wish I had a camera.”

Graham looked back out at the scene in front of him. All the kids were laughing or grinning as they tried to keep up with the Cathy-powered bicycle. Even Aaron’s smile had turned less bitter as he stood and watched. Graham raised his hands to form a rectangle with his fingers and made a clicking noise out the side of his mouth.

“That’s as close as I’ve got.”

The wind chased Grace’s braids around her face as she turned to look at him, she had to adjust it before she could meet his eyes properly. He could feel his cheeks go rosy but knew that it wasn’t like they weren’t already red from the cold

“My mum used to do it,” Graham told her sheepishly. “Dad used to photograph everything, after he died Mum didn’t know how to use the camera properly. So…”

Grace moved her hands from where they were battling to keep her hair out of her face. She looked through the rectangle her fingers made at the scene same as how Graham had only moments before and smiled as Ryan’s dad picked the little boy up off the bike and onto his shoulders. As Jemma jumped to try and reach her friend’s foot and Tommy helped Cathy pull the bike back up the hill.

“Get in frame, you great lump,” she said and Graham was powerless to disobey her.

The three of them sat in their kitchen with hands clasped around warm mugs of hot chocolate. It even had marshmallows in, because it was Christmas and if these kids were going to be high on sugar Graham figured he might as well go all the way.

It was quiet for a while, the silence only broken by Jemma’s yelps as she took sips from her drink almost before the water had left the kettle. 

Tommy in particular was statue-like. Although, Graham considered, that might just be because he had not accepted the offered jumper at any stage during the long walk. But it didn’t seem to just be that. He looked far too focused for it just to be that.

“Graham, you know how Ryan couldn’t pedal his bike or even, just stay on it?”

Jemma’s eyes flicked up at that. The fierce expression on her face filled him with dread as he tried to find the right words for this question. Bearing in mind that there was a five-year-old with nearly boiling liquid at her disposal sat right next to him.

“Suppose so.”

“Why?”

Thankfully, at that Jemma seemed more curious than aggressive. This was a kid who liked having all the information available at any given second, after all. One day she could make a good professor with a mind like hers, or possibly a very effective mob boss.

“I dunno. Everyone’s got things they’re bad at. Ryan’s is riding a bike, I guess.”

“I don’t,” Tommy said with a twinkle in his eye and a half-formed grin that said he didn’t mean a word of what he was saying. “Fantastic at everything.”

“Not sleeping. Or throwing.”

Tommy glowered at Jemma from his side of the table and for a moment Graham remembered those mugs of hot chocolate they had and worried. Then Tommy pulled out his trump card to take the focus away from him again.

“Graham’s bad at cooking.”

Sometimes he genuinely wondered why he had ever volunteered to look after children. Any children, but particularly these ones.

“He’s good at driving.”

Suddenly, he remembered why he volunteered to look after children. It was because they never did things by halves and apparently imprinted enough on him to defend him to a child almost twice their own age.

When he looked at them as they bickered between themselves, he felt a rush of fondness and had to stop himself from taking a memory photo of them. Tommy would tease him for the rest of Graham’s life if he saw him do anything like that. 

If Father Christmas was real and not just him desperately trying not to make a sound as he placed the stockings at two in the morning, he would ask for a camera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks everyone for reading so far. realised i havent written that enough in the notes! 
> 
> anyway. sorry this is a) late and b) short. this week has been a weEK if you know what i mean


	13. Chapter 13

It had been a bad day.

Graham ear had been filled with information from the hospital after he’d frantically called them earlier in the afternoon when Jemma’s lips gained a blue tinge as she struggled to breath. Tommy had been a nasty shade of grey himself when he had barged into the kitchen where Graham was finishing off the washing from the night before.

A part of him wanted to scream, the pair of them had gone out to blow off some steam now that there wasn’t black ice all over the pavement for them to kill themselves making a pretend ice rink out of it like Jemma had been talking about.

And sure, it hadn’t actually been that long. By the time he’d run outside, still in his slippers, the little girl seemed back to normal, just breathing a bit heavier.  
In fact, she had been trying to tease Melissa from next door about something before the older girl smiled, raising a single eyebrow in an expression that wouldn’t look out of place on a serial killer’s mugshot. That facial expression, combined with how she would play dramatic gothic music on her keyboard with the volume turned all the way up and the windows open, had convinced Jemma that her neighbour was a witch. It didn’t matter how many times Graham would tell her that was just how Melissa was, she was convinced the girl could turn her into a frog.

Every time she would tell him this, normally in an urgent whisper, she would clarify that she didn’t have anything against frogs, that in fact she really liked them and would be friends with one if they would stay still long enough. She just didn’t want to be one.

Tommy just found the Masterson’s antics irritating.

He would sigh whenever Melissa complained that the secondary school wouldn’t let her wear eyeliner and she got detention after detention. He huffed at Harold’s snide comments about people on the street and insistence that nobody would shorten his name. He rolled his eyes when Oscar tried to scare him with those poor bugs impales on bits of needles kept in an old matchbox.

Perhaps it was just that none of them were the same age as him, so he didn’t spend hours each day at school with them to get all wound up and frustrated. Jemma had no such problem; everything that Oscar said caused her to bristle with anger. School runs were sure to be an entertaining part of the day if Tommy was staying with them for the term. Graham honestly wasn’t sure whether Tommy would stay out of their fights or be drawn in in some way.

Either way, Melissa hadn’t seemed as above-it-all as normal when she went into her house. 

When he’d asked her over a cup of tea about what had happened, she’d told him all about it. How she’d been coming back from a friend’s house when Tommy had almost barged into her, laughing at how far ahead of Jemma he was in their race. But then skidded to a stop when he realised that Jemma wasn’t chasing him anymore.

She’d paused in the middle of the pavement, gasping for breath with wide eyes flicking between the ground and the other children.

Later, over the phone, the doctors had said it was probably the combination of the cold weather and the sudden exercise. It was, after all, a week since Christmas, so they’d spent a lot of time eating left over mince pies blobbed on the sofa inside instead of their normal activities.

Either way, it had been terrifying for all the people involved, even Melissa who had immediately afterwards adopted her general air of sinister indifference. Tommy had ran back to get him after they’d stared in confusion at Jemma for a few seconds and told her to breathe a few times. Luckily for Graham, who didn’t have intense training in how to deal with hypoxemia attacks other than get them to hospital, it had been mostly resolved by the time he got there.

Her breathing had returned to normal even if she was a bit pale.

Now, she was mostly just tired and had returned to her previous position being blobbed out in the living room watching some rerun on CBBC covered in a blanket that Tommy had lovingly draped over her even as she squawked that she didn’t need it. As Barney Harwood announced the next show she shuffled herself down further into her little coccoon of warmth with a sleepy stretch.

Tommy sat with a stiff back next to her like a military dog on bonfire night.

Deep down, Graham wanted to join him guarding her, making sure she was okay again. Instead he had had to check on the neighbours and finish the washing up, not to mention calling the hospital up to let them know what had happened and trying not to let them know how much this was all freaking him out.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t warned him. Those leaflets in his bedside cabinet were full of comments about how much harder it was for a sick heart to get oxygen to the whole body. There had been lists of things to watch out for, but other than a little breathlessness and paleness, you wouldn’t think that Jemma was sick. Or her heart was anyway. He guessed he’d got complacent, assuming that everything would be okay. 

Part of him was looking back on all the things he had done with Jemma, wondering if he should have done things differently. If only he’d been stricter with getting her to eat a balanced diet her muscles might be stronger. If he kept a closer eye on her things might not have got so far.

But then he thought about just how controlling Mrs Tecteun had been and stopped.

He let out a sigh and tried to remind himself that she was alive. Jemma was happy and healthy, considering that one of the valves in her heart wasn’t working. Since she’d arrived with him, she’d become so much more confident, and if he had to give up some of his control over her to ensure that then he would. He couldn't keep her locked away in a safe bubble with no risks to try and protect her. 

Now they were getting so close to the surgery that might have to change though, he would have to find a way to make sure she got her freedom without killing herself in the process.

That had been the hardest part of the phone call. First of all, he’d told them what had happened and answered the registrar’s almost endless questions. Then he’d been asked to call back. When he did the consultant from before had been on the line and told him they were bringing Jemma’s surgery forward to Monday. Which he guessed solved the whole control or freedom argument, if the problem was going to mostly fix itself. Although, when she came home after surgery she might still need to be careful, he would have to ask.

Which brought him to now. Stress stirring a mixing bowl of Angel Delight as he tried to work out what the hell he would do about Tommy. 

Back in that initial meeting that felt so long ago, he’d said he’d stay with Jemma for the surgery and hospital-based recovery. And he was adamant that he wasn’t going to let her down, especially considering how she was convinced she would die if he wasn’t in Liverpool with her. The kid had been through enough already without feeling abandoned again.

But now he had to think about Tommy as well. Who was meant to be restarting at Redlands Primary on the same Monday as the surgery. There was a small part of his brain that kept saying how this placement was meant to be temporary but he squashed it until it quietened. The kid had been through enough already without feeling abandoned, again.

It was gone nine o’clock and Graham had just sent Tommy back to bed after he’d tried to re-enter the kitchen and take a Capri Sun from the cupboard above the sink. Unfortunately for him, that cupboard was high enough that he always had to climb on top of something to reach what he wanted and the creak of the lower shelf he had ben standing on gave him away.

They’d agreed a few days ago that he could take a short break for water or just to stretch his legs if he had been struggling to sleep for a long time, so he wouldn’t get too frustrated. Well agreed might be a strong word. Compromised was better. Tommy had argued that he should be able to stay up as long as he wanted because he wasn't in infants school anymore. Graham had argued that everybody needs sleep, no matter what stage of the school system you were in. Either way, Capri Sun’s weren’t part of the arrangement so the nine-year-old had been silently escorted back to the room he shared with Jemma. 

Tommy had been quiet the whole evening and he made a note to himself to talk to the boy if he was still acting strangely tomorrow. It might be that he was more shaken by todays incident than Graham had realised. 

Not that he didn’t have a right to be. Graham was still questioning if there was anything he could have done better. And that was with several firm reassurances from a heart doctor that was respected in his field and knew Jemma's case well. 

Hopefully, it was something that they would be able to look at in a calmer light tomorrow after a decent night’s sleep. Graham paused in thought and decided to set that conversation into concrete, as he wasn’t sure just how much Tommy was aware of with Jemma’s condition. He was a smart boy; it wouldn’t be good for him to be in the dark and try to work something out alone. 

It was still silent. It was kind of unnerving if he was honest with himself and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Graham still hadn’t figured out what to do with Tommy next week. He’d attempted contact with the Mastersons to see if they would be willing to look after him for a few days. But Tommy was allergic to their cat, it was probably for the best, seeing as how all his kids also seemed to be allergic to their children. Not that he blamed them, there was somtheing about that trio that got under everybody exept their parents' skin. Although, he supposed, if there were only two people who didn't find them tiring, it was good that it was the people who they lived with.

He’d even tried the door of the guy next door who never seemed to be home. All Graham really knew about him was that he had a granddaughter who he adored, liked astronomy and was passionate about the Christmas season; wearing reindeer antlers non-stop.

It was a pity the bloke was always out.

Deep down, Graham knew he was running out of local options and picked up the phone to call his mum down in Essex. Miriam O’Brian nee Ryan may be an absolute powerhouse of a woman who had walked herself down to the doctor’s surgery on a broken ankle because she didn’t want to bother the hospital, but at twenty to ten it was still a gamble over whether or not she’d be in bed yet.

She wouldn’t be asleep yet, but she would be extremely cranky if Graham made her get out of bed to go and get the phone at this time of night. When the phone was picked up immediately, he let out a soft sigh of relief that he prayed she didn't hear. 

“Hello? Who is this?”

As always, his mum sounded sharp over the phone, something that used to make his heart race before he realised that it was just because she couldn’t hear the other end of the call and was worried that she was missing something. One day someone would teach her how to screen her calls and then it would be all over for him.

“Hi mum, it’s me; Graham.”

“Oh hello. What’re you calling for, I’ve just put the kettle on for the hot water bottle – its late.”

“I can call back tomorrow. Its fine.”

“No, I won’t be able to sleep for thinking about what might be happening. Is it about Thomas and Emma?”

“Jemma.”

“That’s what I said isn’t it? Jemma. Wait. Is the cancer back?”

“I never actually had cancer mum.”

It was just like his mum to be so to the point with this. She liked it when there were problems with clear answers, it was why she had been so distraught when he told her about his cancer scare all that time ago. There had been nothing she could do to help. Now he thought about it he wondered if it would have been kinder to just, not tell her.

“I know that, dear. But if it is cancer you can tell me.”

“Its not cancer mum. I need you to – I mean I was wondering if you could come and watch Tommy next week? If that’s okay with you?”

“Why wont you be watching him then?”

“It’s, well, Jemma’s got to stay in hospital. Surgery.”

“Poor little one. I guess that means she won’t be at your house? Pity, I’d wanted to meet her.”

“I’ll figure something out. I wouldn’t ask, only I said I’d go with her but I’ve got to think about Tommy as well. He needs to get to school and things. And I know you’ve got a DBS certificate and I can call the social before I tell him to make sure everything’s okay with them, but I think it should be. Okay with them I mean.”

“Graham, stop going so fast. I thought I’d said yes?”

He grunted over the phone to indicate that she hadn’t, briefly forgetting how much she hated it when he did that. It was a habit picked up from his father back when Graham was trying to be more grown up than he was aged about eight and copying how his dad would just grunt to answer a question whenever he didn't want to talk. Whether that was just standard tiredness or alchohol induced apathy depended on the day. There were some habits Graham was glad he had never managed to pick up from him.

“I suppose I didn’t then. Well, why would you think I wouldn’t? Of course, I’ll look after my favourite grandson.”

“Thanks, so much mum, I’ll make it up to you I swear.”

“Don’t worry about it, be nice to come up and see you. I wish you didn’t live so far away.”

“I know mum.”

“Now tell me, how are those kids of yours. Did they have a good Christmas?”

“You mean Tommy and Jemma.”

Even through the phone Graham could hear the heavy sigh of disappointment and had to bite his tongue not to make a comment about how it wasn’t polite to sigh. It wasn’t worth it. Not even Tommy would get away with that.

“I mean all your children Graham O’Brian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ check out this cute art of the masterson kids, thanks @bearinabandana](https://bearinabandana.tumblr.com/post/630603151712600064/)


	14. Chapter 14

Graham was tired. Just plain tired.

How he wished there was some kind of dramatic reason why he was tired. There wasn’t. Neither of his kids were playing up, whether intentionally or not. He’d had a full English breakfast this morning that he had helped Tommy make and only ended up with burnt sausages. All things considered everything today was going fantastically.

The main problem was that the Masterson kids were doing his head in. Something that didn’t surprise him anymore, but still irritated him.

Around half an hour after they’d finished cleaning up from breakfast, approximately twenty seconds after he’d got comfy on the settee, ready to attempt some calm reading with the pair of kids he had, he’d remembered that Tommy was restarting school on Monday. This was something he’d been very aware of for the last few days as he tried to get everything ready for his mum to come and stay with them so he could go with Jemma to the hospital. He’d forgotten one thing though.  
School uniform.

So, they’d spent a while going through Tommy’s only half unpacked carrier bag of clothing to see what he had and come to the conclusion that really, they only needed a jumper for the boy. A short argument with the child in question about whether just a simple blue jumper would work or whether he needed the official jumper had led to them searching the cupboards of leftover things from various children’s stays in his house for the proper clothes.

The problem with this was that Graham had been fairly lucky with how local most of his kids had ended up after they moved on from his place. He liked bumping into the kids on school runs or in shops and getting to see that they’re okay. Particularly when they were going back to their biological parents; something that stressed him out, even when he knew it was the right choice for them.

Of his reasonably long-term kids, it was only Tommy who had gone straight to a new school so couldn’t take his uniform with him. Which meant that the only spare uniform he had was Tommy’s, nearly two years and at least one growth spurt too late to be useful.

Tragically, it also meant that they rediscovered the slightly ratty t-shirt Alexander had abandoned six days into his stay. His hatred of the colour green forcing him to reject the clothes even when he couldn’t see the colour.

Jemma’s passionate love of anything with colours, ideally clashing ones, had meant that even what felt like hours later, she was still wearing the t-shirt. This was despite the fact that it looked more like a dress on the five-year-old who, even though she was fairly tall for her age, was still significantly shorter than the average preteen. 

He couldn’t decide if that was a win or not.

The thing he was truly grateful for was the fact that it had been a short sleeved top. Otherwise the was a one hundred percent chance that he would have had to get between the pair of them as they whacked each other with overlong fabric arms.

Either way, the whole morning had led to now. Sat in the Masterson’s living room attempting to ignore the sounds of Jemma and Oscar’s bickering to focus on Mr Masterson’s oddly sinister descriptions of working in mechanics. 

Perhaps it was the beard that made him question the morality of everything he said he had done, whether it was as innocent and mundane as changing a tire or as exciting as going to fix a pump on one of the North Sea oil rigs. Or maybe it was the too-long-to-be-comfortable pauses he gave before explaining how he had fixed the problem. The fact that he’d told Graham these stories dozens of times over the past few years didn’t stop him from telling them again.

It seemed like the man forgot that even if the child he was looking after had changed it didn’t stop his, the adult who rented the house, irritation, having heard the story about how he met his partner outside a manikin factory a thousand times.

He was still waiting to see what class Tommy would end up in with dread. Best case scenario was that he would be alone in his class. Which sounded harsh until you remembered that the worst-case scenario was that he would be in a class with both Harold and Rhys, who had finally got past the passive aggressive stage of their rivalry. Unfortunately, they had only abandoned passive aggression because they had discovered aggression. Thankfully not violence but it was still tiring to be around.

Sometimes it seemed the only time that Harold would speak to him on one of the school runs was to complain about the most recent thing that Rhys had done to annoy him. He wondered if this was how Malfoy’s dad in those Harry Potter films felt reading letters from his son.

As the story finally started reaching its conclusion, Graham spotted Tommy smirking at him from the doorway, clutching several jumpers close to his chest. Behind him, Harold reached over and flicked him on the earlobe.

What came to pass would go down in history as the first time that one of the Masterson kids had got under Tommy’s skin enough to resort to physical violence. In the nine-year old’s defence, it seemed to be a reflex action rather than a choice, but still. The howl that Harold let out was magnificent even if it was very obviously over-dramatic to the extent that even his defensive parents only gave it the briefest bit of attention.

It cut the story short though and gave them an excuse to leave. Which was good.

When they left Harold was still trying in vain to make it look like his scrunched-up face and yells were convincing. Unfortunately for him, they had already spotted him pausing to check how they were responding, so the answer was; not very.

Also, it only took until halfway through boiling the kettle for Graham to realise that Jemma was still next door. Although he was tempted to see how long it took for the her and Oscar’s arguing to become loud enough to hear through several walls and a fence he decided to head back over, leaving Tommy in charge of making the tea. An important skill for any young man to master.

Jemma had obviously discarded Alexander’s old t-shirt at some stage of the afternoon. Little Oscar was grinning wearing the tshirt styled as a tunic and a plastic crown while Jemma had smeared herself in blue paint and was holding the inside of a wrapping paper tube like a sword. Apparently, they were playing Romans and Celts. He was proud of the fact that not only had they not murdered each other while unsupervised but also that he didn’t point out to them that he was pretty sure that Roman’s didn’t wear crowns.

As he hurried her into a bath before the paint dried off he noticed the pale scar on her chest, made so much more prominent by the blue surrounding it. He couldn't imagine how it would be when there was a new scar as well, one that would be so much more clear. One that might bleed or get infected or hurt.


	15. Chapter 15

“How’s my favourite grandson?” Miriam O’Brian cried as the young boy raced out to greet her. It was a sign of how excited Tommy was to see her that he had actively gone up to Graham earlier that morning to ask if he would fix his hair for him.

Now that the woman was here he was, naturally, batting her hands away as she reached to ruffle his hair, laughing the whole time. Even as he crowed about how he was her only grandson, Graham could sense the slight anxiety coming from the kid. For obvious reasons, Tommy wasn’t aware of just how often Miriam would ask after him. Every time she called, she would ask how Graham’s kids were doing, but it was always Tommy she asked about first.

Without looking he could tell that Jemma was lurking, half-hidden in the doorway. The poor kid had almost worried herself sick overnight, biting her lower lip until it was raw.

Just the concept of having another adult in the house seemed to be freaking her out. That Tommy already knew her and had been strutting around in the ‘special’ jumper she had sent him for Christmas in preparation for her visit wasn’t helping matters.

To try and stop the inevitable feelings of disappointment Jemma would feel when she received a different type of gift from Tommy, he had had to do a short introduction into how long it takes to knit. Particularly when you can’t knit and procrastinate buying new wool, like his mother.

What made it better was that Tommy had confessed quietly to him late last night that he hated the jumper, but he wanted to be used to how itchy it was by the time Miriam arrived so that he didn’t hurt her feelings by scratching. Jemma didn’t know that, but Graham was confident that she would not be as happy wearing a woollen jumper as she thought. The problem was that he wasn’t sure how to bring it up to her.

Even if he sat her down in the perfect conditions to clear everything up, the chances of her talking about what was bothering her was near to zero. It might be that she thought her sort of grandmother would physically steal everything while she was away. It might be that she thought she was being replaced. Or anything, really. The possibilities flew around his heads like daddy long legs in autumn.

Graham had tried to talk to her about it but even for a five-year-old, the kid had the emotional communication skills of a dying cabbage.

“Graham,” his mum cried from where she and Tommy had finally finished reuniting. “You fancy telling me where I can take these bags anytime soon?”

Now that was, as he well knew, a trick question. What she was really saying was ‘Graham O’Brian if you don’t help me with my bags, I am not going to give you any peace for the rest of your life.’ And so, without saying a single word, he trotted over to the little red hatchback to assess which bag he would take up and which he would assign to a child.

Luckily for him, Tommy was still in the excited phase of seeing Mirium so was happy to be loaded up with bags to prove how strong he was. The sight of his dramatic mother gushing over how much the boy had grown made him smile into his own shoulder as he remembered how she had been sure to turn up three stops into his route on his first shift as a bus driver. To this day he wasn’t sure if it was one of the best or worst memories of his career, the gesture itself was beautiful and he would appreciate it to the end of his life. How loudly she managed to say how proud she was of her baby boy in front of the other customers was less fun to remember.

It had taken weeks for Mark from down the pier to stop teasing him about it.

Now she had somebody else to adore. Somebody who needed an adoring presence in his life more than he would ever admit to. Watching how Tommy would always light up like the Oxford Street lights when he saw Miriam was one of his favourite things.

As his mother started up the small pathway to the door he could see her eyes darting around from underneath her eyeliner, looking for something, he was pretty sure he knew what.

“Where have you hidden my granddaughter, eh, son?” she said with a grin, a split second after her eyes stopped searching. 

Before she retired, she had been a school teacher, so she knew how to get a shy child to respond. Or in other words, she was very good at pretending she hadn’t seen where they had gone and letting them come out in their own time, having vocalised that she was in fact looking forward to meeting them. 

“Oh, she’ll be around somewhere,” he commented as neutrally as he could manage, prompting a cough from Tommy. Before the little boy could make a sound, he turned and made a shushing face with a wink, trying to hold back a grin that would give the game away if Jemma could see them from where she was hiding away. 

Clearly Miriam had spotted her, so he wasn’t worried.

“So, mum, I’ve – “Graham struggled fitting the awkwardly shaped bag through the door. It was an odd shape like it had been packed as aggressively as you would pack a sleeping bag but with solid items. “I’ve put you in my room for the week, I’ll sleep downstairs tonight.”

“You’ll be sleeping in the hospital the rest of the time, right?”

“Mostly yeah, I’ll be over in Merseyside most the week. But I’ll call and I thought I’d pop back for a night, y’know, to make sure everything’s going alright.”

“Its just cos his back doesn’t like hospitals,” Tommy said, from halfway up the stairs, with a look in his eyes that said that he wouldn’t have made the comment if he had been standing any closer.

“Sofa’s so much better, is it?”

“Genuinely just want to check in on you guys,” Graham sighed.

“Give me a call before you leave and I’ll make a fisherman’s pie for your dinner. Someone’s gotta teach Tommy to cook.”

“We cook.”

“Graham O’Brian, you can barely cook a spag bol.”

Well, she had him there. It was only really for the sake of light bickering that he continued the conversation as in reality he knew that Tommy would receive some far better-quality food this week than normal. Which wasn’t saying that he couldn’t cook, just that there were different levels of skill for this kind of thing. But it was important that the kids heard the gentle, non-escalating argument of people who care about each other.

“I can do a decent shepherd’s pie.”

From the hall at the top of the stairs Tommy scoffed and made what Graham could only assume were rave reviews of his meals under his breathe. Miriam made a comment about putting the kettle on. Behind him, just beyond the doorway into the living room Jemma hissed his name as quietly as a little girl can. So, pretty loudly.

“Your shepherds pie’s really good.”

As the kettle started to boil and Graham made his way up the stairs, he noticed both little blonde shadow following him out of her hiding spot and the fond smile of his mother watching subtly from the kitchen. When the package kept banging against the stair rail Jemma took the other end to stop it rebounding into Grahams thigh.

Once they reached what was normally Graham’s room, they found Tommy carefully placing the two carrier bags he had brought up onto the bed. Seeing them appear with the last bag he practically fled the room, the pair of them watched him leave.

“Is she – is she okay?”

“My mum?” Graham said casually, until he noticed how still and quiet Jemma was being. “Yeah, she’s nice. She used to bring my lunch into school if I forgot it when I was a kid. And she sings nice, knows loads of songs.”

With her lips caught between her teeth and her eyebrows close together, she nodded. She jumped a little on her toes and forced a grin, eyebrows and shoulders loose, only her eyes kept the emotion in them. He had to hold himself back from grabbing her and hugging her close.

“Kid, you don’t have to do that. Its okay to be scared.”

“I’m annoying when I’m scared.”

“Even if you were – and you’re not – it would still be okay to be scared.”

The kid’s response was just to huff. If he was any other parent, he would be worried about the way her eyebrows came back down. As it was, he felt what was probably an unreasonable amount of pride in the way she headed for the door before pausing to check that he was going to go downstairs with her. That even if it wasn’t out loud, she was asking for his help with something that was scaring her.

“You want these ones?” Miriam said, holding up a pair of striped pyjamas for Jemma to see.

Jemma barely made eye contact and instead just shrugged. They had been introduced earlier and had been seeming to get along well but now the boys had gone out to get food from the chippy it had become awkward. It had been Miriam’s idea to start packing Jemma’s hospital bag, mostly just to give them something to do.

Unfortunately, either Jemma genuinely didn’t care about what she took with her or was still too tense to have opinions in the matter. This was the fourth and final pair of pyjamas she had displayed zero interest in. 

“Okay so,” she laid he four pairs of pyjamas out on the bed so they could all be seen. “Graham says we should put two pairs in.”

From her position sat cross-legged on the floor Jemma continued rolling a toy car up and down her right leg without looking up. Miriam bit back the urge to pinch her nose, reminding herself that she probably just didn’t want to think about what would be happening this week. Packing a bag for the hospital stay would be confirming that it would happen, making it feel more real than it had before.

But she also felt it was important that she didn’t end up with all of her least favourite clothes to be stuck with while she recovered. Even if it was a small thing it felt bigger. As her sort-of-grandma she wanted the small girl to be comfortable and, if she was being honest with herself, she wanted to be able to help. There was so little that she or her son could do to make it easier for Jemma, and she hadn’t really understood why it bothered Graham so much until now.

Knowing that tomorrow this child who couldn’t read a clock would be quite literally under the knife made her feel helpless.

It was good that she was able to help by making sure that Tommy wasn’t put into a different family again; something that she knew would badly impact on how his mental health. If Graham had asked her to watch him for a far more trivial reason, she would have done it. For so long she had worried about how Graham was coping, she knew that he had thought it was just her being dramatic but he had always been a serious child, so different to herself and she wasn’t always sure how to help him when he was hurt.

Finding out that he was looking after children in his area had comforted her. It told her that he was in a decent headspace, helping people and apparently being very good at it. In a more selfish way it proved that he was more similar to her than she had thought.

And of course, the moment she heard him ramble on about his first foster son, well, the first to stay with him longer than a week, she knew it was the right choice for him. Even through the phone she could hear how he was smiling even as he talked about how difficult it was and how scared he was that he would mess it up. How he would follow a complaint he had recieved from the school with news about how they were finally talking to him about what had actually happened at school. The excitement in his voice every time that a child started trusting him was beautiful.

Hearing about the various children who stayed with him quickly became one of her favourite parts of their weekly conversations. Up until now though, Tommy was the only one that she’d met.

Graham had brought him down for a night during half term more than a year ago. They had taken him down to the shore and she had shown him how to beat Graham at air hockey. She had laughed as Tommy’s eyes blew up watching seagulls swarm to eat his chips after he had thrown one onto the beach. He had, half-jokingly, told her she was the best grandma ever and she had tried not to cry.

All things considered it made sense that she was finding it harder to bond with Jemma, it was, after all, a stressful time in her life. 

Well, she said it was hard to bond with her. It was more like it was hard to get to know her; she already knew that she would gladly go through the surgery instead of her if it was possible. The combination of Graham’s excited descriptions through the phone of Jemma’s antics and the way she had insisted on being the one to bring her a cup of tea earlier today meant that she was already in love with the child.

“Which ones are your least favourite?”

At least that got her attention, it was a fairly simple technique to use with a young child – if they aren’t responding to one line of questioning, then phrase it differently. You could almost see the cogs turning in her head as she tried to work out what she was meant to say and if it was some kind of trick question.

“They’re all good.”

“You are right there, hun but, y’know looking at these pyjamas - which are all great – which one is the worst?”

It took several seconds, during which Jemma clearly was debating the options in her head. Either she could answer the question or continue trying not to, the real question was which might irritate Miriam more. 

When she brought her hand up from the floor it was shaking, it was barely noticeable but it was still happening. Carefully making sure that she didn’t make any form of eye contact she pointed towards the second set laid out on the bed. Miriam felt like shouting, cheering and pulling her into a hug to spin her round the room with excitement instead she kept her voice relaxed.

“Fair enough, I’ll put these ones back into the drawer then.”

“I can do it.”

Now, technically, Miriam was a good bit closer to the chest of drawers than Jemma but she nodded and rearranged the remaining clothes as she darted over and put them away. Judging from Graham’s complaints over the phone about how messy Jemma could be, she was being especially careful with the new adult staying in the room. The thought was appreciated even if it was still very clear that she had no idea how to fold the pyjamas.

Miriam held herself back from showing her the proper way to do it. If it came down to it and the atmosphere was different by that stage she was sure that they could do some pretty folding when they put it into the new suitcase standing in the corner of the room.

“What about the next least favourite of these still amazing pyjama sets.”

Jemma’s response was faster this time as she pointed at the third pair. Turning to make sure that Jemma could see, Miriam smiled proudly and placed the discarded clothes into the little girls arms to put away with a flourish.

“How many pairs are left Jemma?”

“Two.”

“And how many did Graham say you had to put in the suitcase?”

“Two. I think.”

“So, I think that means we’ve got the perfect number of pyjamas! Should we put them in the suitcase now or later?”

It was gratifying to see that even though Jemma was still chewing her lip before answering it was faster this time. She glanced back towards the purple suitcase standing by the wardrobe and back at the bed with pyjamas on before huffing slightly. Her eyes darted towards Miriam in panic, who was folding the pyjamas into a pile.

“Later.”

“Good idea,” Miriam said. “That way we’ll know how small to fold it so everything will fit. So, this little pile will be the ‘take’ pile. Sound good?”

“Yeah.”

Miriam pretended not to notice as Jemma threw a deformed teddy bear onto the pile from the floor as she went to look for t-shirts. That thing was somehow both adorable and terrifying.

“You sure we got everything, Graham?”

“Pretty sure, do you think we forgot something?”

The boy shook his head to get his hair out his eyes only for the wind to immediately blow it back. He sucked in a breath of freezing air and coughed.

“Nah.”

“Remember we read straight from the list we made back home?”

“Yeah, its all good Graham, its just – “

When Tommy didn’t continue Graham took a look at him. His hands were tightly holding onto the bag of chips he had, which was probably for the best considering how often he was scuffing his shoes on the pavement. He had been uncharacteristically serious for most of the afternoon, not even fighting Jemma about what board game she chose to play.

“Just what?”

“Just,” Tommy sighed. There was a long pause before he continued. “It has to be perfect.”

That stopped Graham in his tracks. He wasn’t sure how he was meant to respond. He wasn’t even sure what in particular he was having to respond to. If he was honest with himself it could be many things, there was a lot going on in Tommy’s life at the moment. 

Although Graham knew how much Tommy loved spending time with his almost-grandma it would still be the first time they had had a sleepover without Graham around. And then there was how he would be restarting at Redlands tomorrow, which would be daunting for anybody. Starting a new school is always rough but starting a new school that you left without warning? It must be terrifying for him. 

“What does?”

“Jemma’s last night here cos if it’s perfect now it’ll be perfect tomorrow.”

Ah.

Of course. No matter what anyone said about Tommy and his various personality traits that he let out at different moments with different people, nobody could say that he didn’t have a big heart. Actually, his old teacher probably would but that’s irrelevant. That kid would be worried if he heard a total stranger in the street was having an operation.

It being Jemma having the operation was worse. Sure they bickered and he had to stop them from physically murdering each other daily but they were closer than most people would expect. One morning he had gone into the kids room to put washing away and saw several toy soldiers placed along the window, looking out to defend the room from monsters. To this day he wasn’t sure who had put them out or for who’s benefit.

“Tommy,” Graham said seriously, crouching down to his level and desperately trying to ignore both the way his knees clicked in protest and how an older woman paused to watch. 

“I want you to know this, because this is right important. Those surgeons are some of the best in the whole country and they’re gonna take good care of her, okay? You could throw that bag into the road right now and it wouldn’t change that. It’s scary, I know that, trust me, sometimes it scares me so much it feels like I can’t breathe. But its their job and they’re gonna take real good care of her and so we’ve got to trust them, okay?”

“But what if something goes wrong?”

“If something goes wrong then we’ll have to deal with it I guess.”

“So, something could go wrong then?”

“We’ve got to cross a road to get home, right?” he waited until Tommy nodded before continuing. “Something could go wrong then. But it won’t because people know how to drive and we’ll be using a crossing so that people stop.”

Graham paused and winced at his words. Now the kid was going to have nightmares about being hit by a car for the next month, it wasn’t what he had meant at all. He had just wanted to get across how just because somethings risky doesn’t mean its always going to go wrong, or that you can avoid doing it. Tommy’s look of panic made it clear that that message wasn’t really getting across.

“That wasn’t – that wasn’t useful, sorry. I mean, something could go wrong but ninety-nine percent chance it won’t so,”

“What does that mean?”

“Means it probably won’t. We’ve got to focus on the big chance of her being fine not the little chance of not being fine.”

“Focus on her being fine.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped and he forced out what he probably thought was a relaxing breath. For the first time since Tommy had come home Graham reached out and touched his shoulders, keeping his movements slow so that he could stop at anytime and wouldn’t startle the kid. When he didn’t flinch or protest, he brought him closer until it was just the plastic bag of fried goodness between them.

The bag just made the hug warmer, even if it did make the body positioning slightly awkward. More awkward for Graham as far as he could tell, with the corner of the box the large chips were in digging into his stomach.

Still, he wouldn’t break this for the world as Tommy allowed himself to collapse into his arms. Graham just rubbed his back like he was winding a newborn and muttered reassurances to him until he pulled away, rambling at a hundred words a minute about how they should get the food home before it got cold.

The older woman took his arm as he walked by, Tommy at his side with his eyes raised from the pavement at last and, thankfully, not anxiously looking at the road.

“Good luck with her surgery,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “Your wife?”

Tommy laughed as though he hadn’t been close to tears only a few seconds ago. When he turned to speak to the lady his face was light up and, realising he was about to talk to an elderly stranger, he transferred the bag to his other hand and brushed his hair out his eyes again.

“Not his wife. My little sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ayyyy meet miriam whos based on a combination of my nan and pam from gavin and stacey 
> 
> also have some found family hurt/comfort


	16. Chapter 16

The countdown was officially on. By which Graham meant that Jemma was telling the play therapist that she hadn’t drank anything for over an hour now. Seeing as how the woman had been with them for nearly half an hour, she’d had several of these little reminders at this stage. Over Jemma’s head he gave a shrugged smile.

He may not be a doctor but he was pretty sure that when a child still in reception was coming up to open heart surgery, she was allowed to complain about not even getting to drink water as much as she wanted to.

Over the past few weeks, he’d gathered that when Jemma was stressed about something, she would change the focus of her stress so that she appeared to be freaking out about something both unrelated and less serious. There was a pre-teen called Charlotte in the bed opposite who looked like they were now experiencing the joys of second-hand anxiety. Not about her fellow patient’s surgery, after all everyone in the room either had already had or was going to have surgery, but about how she was missing the first day back at school.

In a way Graham supposed it made sense for her to cope like this. He could barely get his head around what was happening and he was old enough that they only stocked general birthday cards instead of yearly ones.

However, even as young as she was, Jemma was perfectly capable of worrying about whether or not Yaz and Ryan would still want to be friends with her when she went back, or if they would be Oscar’s friends now. Being off school for at least a week right after a holiday, without seeing anyone was hard. When you only made these friends a few months ago after they had made friends in their pre-school before, it was only natural to wonder whether or not that friendship would last.

It was only through some, quite frankly inappropriate, Oscar related insults that he could get her mind off it. Something he knew, or rather hoped, would come back to haunt him when she would tease him on the way to school one day. Hoping that your child would still be there to behave badly was a sensation that he didn’t want to deal with again.

For now, the play therapist was just sitting and playing an unusually quiet game of Hungry, Hungry Hippos with the set up balanced on the overbed table. 

Graham had decided about twenty minutes ago that this woman was a godsend. Of course, the doctors and people had been through on their rounds earlier in the morning and had answered as many questions from the both of them as they could. But it wasn’t them who had brought out some specially written picture books about surgery and sat with the little girl as she flicked through the pages. And it wasn’t them who had brought out a bottle of bubbles for Jemma to blow as she tried to keep calm as they put the cannula into her arm.

Not that he had anything against the doctors. They not only were going to have this child’s life in their hands, literally, in less than half an hour, but they had tried involved Jemma as much as they could and paused when she started panicking about the needle.

And the nurses. Well, the nurses had been brilliant. If he could chose to marry someone from a specific profession it would probably be a nurse. They’d joked around with Jemma in such a natural way that he wasn’t sure if she’d noticed them taking her observations or if she was just used to it from her previous visits.

“Can I take it with me?” Jemma piped up as she picked up a plastic ball that had pinged to the other side of the bedspace, taking care not to let the cannula in her arm bump into anything.

“The ball?” the play therapist asked. 

“No,” Jemma replied without looking up. “Can I take Pting with me?”

“Your cuddly toy?” Jemma nodded with forced calm. “Yeah, it can go with you to go to sleep.”

“Will it stay after? When they cut me open?”

“Well, that’s for the surgeon to decide. They might say it would be better for him to stay out here, keep Graham company.”

“S’not a he,” Jemma said and when the woman didn’t respond immediately, elaborated. “Pting’s not a boy. Pting’s a Pting.”

“Okay. Well, still might be better if it stays outside.”

“But I want it with me.”

Saving the stammering woman from the unfortunate fate of having to try and change Jemma’s mind about something, a distraction came in the form of one Sarah Jane Smith, who raced over with her jacket buttons done up wrong.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said with a bright smile. “There was an… incident that I had to deal with. But I’m here now.”

“Is Canine here, Sarah?”

“Afraid not, Jemma. Do you want to see a picture of him in a Christmas cracker hat?”

As Jemma became absorbed with the picture and the story that went with it; something involving a family of scam artists trying to take over a garden centre, Joan grabbed one of the passing nurses who immediately went to the desk out in the corridor. When he returned Graham was trying to decide how much of Sarah Jane’s story was true. 

It took a moment for Graham to register that, even as she hastily wrapped up the story, the social worker’s focus had switched to the form in front of her. She scanned it to check that what they had told her over the phone was correct and signed the surgical consent form using a beautiful golden pen she had brought out from her handbag.

Jemma watched with the focus of a convict hearing their sentencing for the first time. Somehow, both laser sharp and blurry.

With the final stroke of the pen it was like the ward had woken up finally, had realised what was going to be happening. Of course, Sarah Jane had given verbal consent over the phone but policy said that the form either had to be filled in and signed or there had to be some kind of court order saying it didn’t.

Now they were moving fast into the stage where they would be wheeling the kid away on the hospital bed. Already one of the nurses had come over holding what looked like a child sized hospital gown covered in bright numbers.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the other person feeling uncomfortable with the whole situation was too short for a rollercoaster he would be glad it wasn’t just him. As it was, he couldn’t let himself get caught up on how hard his heart was beating, he was this child’s guardian and it was his job to stay calm to help her through this.

“Think they’ve got one in my size, Jem?”

Her lips twitched upwards for a second before falling back as the nurse asked if she would need help getting changed. When she heard this her eyes flew up to his and he found himself pulling the thin curtain around her bedspace to give her some dignity. 

Unlike many other days, when she would have battled with him over whether or not she was physically capable of doing up the laces running down the back of her gown, she just turned. It didn’t seem like a gesture she would typically make, until he noticed how her shoulders were tense and her breathing forced. How her face was fixed in place like some kind of plastic mask.

Fixing the final ties with a neat bow at the base of her neck he sat her up on the bed and took both her hands in his. Like this, he could see how tiny she was compared to him, as well as how pale and cold the tips of her fingers were. When he glanced down he saw that the same could be said about her toes, so before he started speaking he picked the discarded socks up from the floor and put them back on her feet, to try and give her some warmth.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Remember what I said yesterday? How its alright to be scared?”

Graham waited for any kind of response from the numb little girl in front of him, but was instead left floundering as he tried not to press her for an answer. It was a conscious effort not to sigh in muted disappointment.

“It is okay, y’know. To be scared. Particularly right now, I reckon.”

“Are the fish gonna be there when I’m asleep?”

“They’ll be downstairs in their tank, yeah. We went to see them earlier, remember?”

“And Pting. Where’s Pting gonna be when I’m asleep?”

“I’ll look after Pting.”

Directly in front of him, Jemma chewed her lip. Every so often her eyes would dart up to meet his before hurrying away again. Behind him he heard the rustling of the curtain with a quiet statement that they needed to go now and reached back to make a shooing gesture to whoever was about to open it. What she said next made him wish he hadn’t as his stomach turned and his mind raced for an answer that would help.

“What if I don’t wake back up again?”

“Well,” Graham said, desperately hoping that she couldn’t hear how close he was to sobbing. “Well, then I’d miss you. A lot.”

“Really, for real?”

“Yeah, ‘course I would.” 

“Mum wouldn’t.”

“Maybe, or maybe she would I dunno. But I reckon Tommy would miss you. And your friends at school. Even Oscar next door. We’d all be sad, really sad.”

“Don’t want you be sad.”

“Hey, kid, its not your job to worry about us. Other way round.”

“But it might go bad. It might – it might go bad.”

“It didn’t last time, did it? And, your doctors, they’re all amazing. You’re gonna be okay. No question about it. No matter what, you’re gonna be okay.”

And, as hard as it was, he had to believe it too. Over the past few weeks, he had read everything he could find about this kind of surgery; he could list off all the potential complications. All the ways that it could go wrong. There were so many words that he had had to look up only to shudder when he found out the definitions. But he also had to remember how low the chances were that those scenarios would happen instead of her coming out the other side of this with anything other than a new scar and an improved heart.

“You’re okay, it’s gonna be okay. Can you say it back?”

Several long, hard breaths happened before she could manage to whisper it back to him. He kept a hold of her hands and repeated it, more confidently this time and managed to muster a smile out of the memory of her stumbling over the words to a song, laughing. 

“Alright, can I sit on your bed, Jem?”

“Yeah.”

His knees creaked as he straightened up. Through a series of gestures, he convinced Jemma to lie down before he sat down on her left side, taking the still minorly horrifying cuddly toy into his lap to hold onto.

“I’ll be here as long as they’ll let me. And I’ll be here when you wake up. Sound good?”

“Sound okay but…”

Hesitantly, she patted the bed beside her, rolling her eyes when he didn’t immediately understand her meaning. It took an embarrassing amount of time before he figured out what she was still trying to work out how to phrase and shifted his position so he was lying alongside her. Without words, she burrowed down into his side, keeping Pting in between them.

“I - you’ll stay, here?”

“They’ll have to wheel me too, no way I’m walking now, eh? We travel in style us O’Brians.”

As the curtains were pulled open to let the light in and the nurse quickly took one final set of observations before they left Jemma took hold of one of his fingers. In a strange way he was reminded of the way his mates would always talk about how they knew they’d fallen in love with their kids when they gripped their finger for the first time. Like they didn’t want to ever let go and they would pry their little hands off with a teary grin.

He’d thought they were sentimental idiots back then when he was young and stupid. But he thought he understood now, knowing that he would refuse to make her loosen her grip before the anaesthetic kicked in, even if he knew they’d make him get off the bed. 

With a loud clang and a series of beeps the bed started moving. Charlotte in the bed opposite, along with several parents and staff members called out good lucks as they rolled out into the corridor. Any other day Jemma would have been attempting to start conversations with everyone and making the nurse going with them have to hurry them along. She would have been overjoyed that she had her social workers undivided attention and proximity as the other Miss Smith marched alongside the bed, holding onto the rail with one hand.

Today she just curled up, wincing when she realised that she was leaning on her cannula but not turning over and taking the pressure off. The pressure around his finger felt like it was cutting off his circulation. Slowly he took his free hand and smoothed back her hair in what he hoped was a comforting gesture.

“I’m here, Jem, and I’ll stay ‘til you fall asleep.”

“Promise?”

“Pinky promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that was fun, right??


	17. Chapter 17

Graham was pacing. In fact, he’d been pacing for a good forty-five minutes at this stage, actually, it was forty-six, now he checked the clock again. It was probably the forty sixth time he’d checked the clock since they’d put Jemma under.

When her eyes had closed and he was ushered away he stopped breathing. Only for a few seconds in reality but he felt like he still hadn’t caught it back.

One of the nurses had stayed with him for the first ten minutes or so, advising him to distract himself but letting him know that, basically no matter what he did, this was going to feel like the longest few hours of his life. For a while he’d thought about going to a cinema and watching a new release but he knew that the moment the hospital called him he would be straight back. The fact that they’d told him it would be at least three hours didn’t stop him worrying about whether there would be time to watch the film and get back so he was there when she woke up.

Besides, it had already been forty-seven minutes, what was a few more? If he’d gone to the cinema right away, he wouldn’t have this problem of getting back in time but now, by the time he found one and got a ticket, there’d only be one hour and forty-five minutes. Not enough time.

Its not like he would appreciate whatever it was he would be watching. Even if it was the best thing since sliced bread, in line for twenty Oscars and had Harrison Ford in it, he wouldn’t be able to focus on it properly. Then he’d want to go back and watch it again. But he would probably have chosen an adult film to watch because he didn’t have to bring kids along, so he’d have to wait until it was out on a DVD.

And if he saw a more family friendly film, he would spend half the time glancing at the kids who weren’t with him to see how they were responding to it. 

Now he had reached the end of the corridor for what felt like the thousandth time today, he swung open the door on an impulse he couldn’t name and marched down to the main part of the building. It was when he reached the reception that he realised that he had no idea where he was going.

He paused and stood, watching as fuzzy looking people walked past him with eyes tinged with sympathy and their hands pulling along children who didn’t currently have their chest open.

“Sir, are you okay?” a man sitting by the reception desk asked.

Graham tried to pull himself together. He forced his eyes upwards to meet this stranger’s and smiled, making sure to keep his face as relaxed as he could manage. 

“Urm… yeah. I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

“Are you sure? There’s a quiet room down on the – “

“I said I’m fine,” he barked aggressively. Letting his breath out he covered his eyes with his palm for a moment before attempting to smooth out the deep lines etched into he forehead. 

The man should have been looking worried or at least startled. That was the voice he normally used to get drunk twenty-somethings to pay their fare after they’d pushed their way onto his last bus of the night, slurring jokes to their friends. Instead he just smiled softly and directed a young mum to a ward without missing a beat. 

“Sor- I’m sorry,” Graham said, making a conscious effort to soften his voice. “Its just that… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Everyone’s stressed here, always. The parents anyway and I’ve had worse.”

“Still. You were being nice and I’m sorry.”

“What’s your kid up too then? To get you worried like that?”

“Open heart surgery,” the man didn’t wince, which Graham appreciated more than what was probably normal. “She’s only five and my mums staying with my other one but,” for the first time he sobbed into his fist. “God, she’s… she’s only five. She can’t tell the time but she’s got this surgery that might – it might kill her.”

“Tell me about her.”

“She’s funny, smart, too cheeky for her own good. On her good days she’ll make sure you’re looking right as she does something, she knows she shouldn’t. And she always acts like she doesn’t like reading until – God. She’s five. I should - I’ve got to call my mum”

From behind the desk the man got to his feet as though to hurry him or guide him to someplace quieter. However, just as he cleared his throat to help him out a pair of terrified parents practically ran in holding tight to a screaming toddler as blood and tears stained their clothes, and he was forced to give them directions to the emergency department as well as a handful of gauze to place on their child’s bloody finger.

By the time the lobby was quiet enough for anyone to hear their own thoughts Graham had slipped away to find a phone he could use and cursing himself for not having bought one of those portable ones that some of the new starters at the station carried around with them.

In fact, as a young Jemma Smith – whose mother’s very public trial for child abuse and using her child as a ‘lab rat’ left parents in the park gossiping even as the girl in question was sat on a swing – was having her ribcage opened up, Graham O’Brian called his home and prayed to a God that he didn’t often believe in. Every ring of the line echoed in his ear until he realised that his mother had been speaking for a few seconds. 

Because of the unusual situation her family was in she repeated her normal introduction instead of hanging up the moment the other person didn’t respond like Graham was useful. It seemed like she recognised his breathing in some way and let him breathe and blubber all he needed too.

Without noticing he slid down the wall until he was sat on the ankles of his feet, leaving the coiled plastic holding the phone to the wall stretched to full capacity. The moment that he was composed enough to talk and breath at the same time he spoke, his words coming out at a thousand miles an hour. Kind of like how Jemma’s did when she thought she was in trouble.

“How’s Tommy? Is his – did he get to school okay?”

If nothing else, he would grant his mother this for the rest of his life: she didn’t miss a beat or question why he wanted to discuss his physically healthy foster child rather than the other. Instead she just spoke calmly like nothing was wrong. As though he was calling from a pub after a mate’s stag do, but with less judgement hidden in her voice.

“Yeah, I took him a few minutes early so he could find his class’s bag rack and y’know, all that stuff. Your older one – whatshisname – Ryan? No, that’s nor right. It definitely starts with a R – Rory?”

“Rhys?”

“That’s it. Well, they’re in the same class. Apparently, Rhys has heard a lot about Tommy, seemed a bit jealous if I’m honest but still, good kid. You were right about that. He said ‘good luck’ for Jemma, so there’s that too.”

On the other side of the phone, Miriam O’Brian paused, waiting to see how he reacted to the J word, as she was calling it in her head. It had slipped out before she had noticed, trying to fill in the gaps of silence that came between each gasp for air rendered all the more horrible for the crackle of the phone line. 

“If you see him tomorrow tell him thanks from me, alright?”

“Of course, my little prince.”

“Thought that was Tommy.”

“You’re both my little princes. If Charles and William are both princes then you and Tommy both are as well.”

“Y’know that Phillip’s a prince too?”

“Yes, but I don’t like him.”

“Okay.”

Graham paused, holding his breath in this throat like a jewel; precious but could easily choke him if he inhaled it wrong. He knew that his mother would wait a few seconds for him to try and articulate what it was that he needed before taking over, but he couldn’t think of anything. Except for the thing that he couldn’t stop thinking about.

“She’s gonna be okay, right?”

“Yes. Yes, she is. You know that, I know that, what you don’t know is what that bug eyed neighbour of yours said this morning when we picked up their younger two.”

“… so, what did he say?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter is short  
> writers block what can you do


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: there are some semi? graphic descriptons of extubation and minor self harm (biting inside of mouth) in this chapter

Jemma was choking. Well, she thought she was choking. She was pretty sure she was choking; it felt like there was something stuck at the back of her throat, like when food goes down the wrong way and you have to cough it up. She started trying to cough.

Through her still mostly shut eyelids, she could see a blurry figure come up to her. Whoever it was had long brownish hair like her mum does and was striding over like her mum always used to when she did something she wasn’t meant to. Even though she was lying flat she still tried to press herself into the bed, to make herself smaller.

Behind her a harsh beeping started and the back of her neck was really starting to scare her as she tried desperately to spit. With her eyes now wide open and panicking she could see the figure properly. 

It wasn’t her mum at all. It was a young woman with scared looking eyes and a grey uniform who rushed over and held her face in her hands for a second. Something must have been attached to her face and now it wasn’t. Even though she still looked like Jemma might break in her hands, which wasn’t comforting, her voice was soothing as she said.

“Its okay. You’re okay. Just keep spitting alright?”

And she kept going; the girl by the bed kept talking and the girl on the bed kept trying to spit, even as other people started crowding in. All people in tunics of various shades of blue with practiced smiles on their faces. After a total of thirty seconds from when she woke until now, the tube that had been pressing into the back of her throat came out, just as a man stepped forward to try and help out.

Now she breathed like normal, letting her lips come together like they were meant to again and frowning when she found they were greasy, as though somebody had put Vaseline on them before she woke up.

One of the people almost ran forward as she pulled her arms back to help her sit up. He was wearing a fleece and had tear stains running down his face even as his smile stretched from ear to ear. Seeing him made her smile immediately as she recognised someone in the room at last. The moment he reached her he lowered her back down while gesturing to someone behind him to raise the top part of the bed so she could see what was happening.

Jemma was fairly sure that Graham didn’t have any kind of strange tube in his mouth but he still looked like he was about to choke on something, with his eyes wide and his fist next to his teeth. Behind the fist she could barely see the tiny smile that was forcing itself to the surface.

“No crying.”

“Alright cockle, no more crying.”

Even though she still felt overwhelmed by everything and everyone in the room she sank down into the bed again, holding tight to her dad’s hand and knowing that the awkward young nurse was the closest thing she’d see to her mum today.

Graham could breathe again. It was something that he wouldn’t take for granted in the future, the absence of nausea and a new found ability to let his shoulders down were things he had always expected to be there in general.

This surgery had shaken him in the same way that his cancer had shaken him before, the same way that Alexander getting suspended from school for the first time had and the same way that Josh slamming his own head into the wall behind him had. Every time he thought that everything was going to be okay the world would throw something else at him and his kids.

But for now, there was a small warm person curled up next to him and a portable television the hospital had wheeled over now that Jemma was out of the recovery unit and into the longer lasting observation period that was being done in a little cubicle off the heart ward.

There was a lot that he could say about the room they were in. There were precisely thirty-four tiles on the ceiling and two meshed things that he was pretty sure were vents. And enough machines with bright lights and buttons attached to his little girl that he had given up trying to figure out what they all did.

Most importantly though, there was a VHS player attached and a copy of Lilo and Stitch that his mother had thought to put in their bag.

Next to him Jemma turned her head to look at him seriously.

“Is Tommy okay?”

For the first time that day Graham smiled naturally, even going as far as to tap her on the nose with a fondness that he wasn’t sure how he was meant to contain. This kid made him smile like nobody else did.

“Yeah, he’s in Rhys’ class. He says good luck. Rhys.”

“No.”

Startled, Graham peered down, watching as Jemma’s brow knitted itself together like her brain was going haywire. If he knew what had gone wrong this would be a lot easier to deal with, but he knew that if he just let her wind herself up the alarm behind him would start going off. The red one that measured her heart rate through the wires stuck to her chest.

“Why no, Jemma?”

“If he says good luck, he should say it before. Or it won’t work.”

“He did,” Graham said in a mouthful of confused panic. “He said it this morning when my mum dropped Tommy off at school. I didn’t know ‘til you were asleep. Okay?”

“How’d you know now?”

“I called my mum, on a phone downstairs.”

“Why did I not call her too?”

“You were asleep Jems. Okay?”

The little girl scrunched up her face until her mouth had almost morphed with her nose and her face had creases going up it. It was a face that Graham hoped he’d see a thousand times again. He chucked as she unsuccessfully blew her hair out of her eyes for the fourth time in this conversation, knowing that the strands falling there was distracting her from this very important question.

“Okay.”

“How about I tie your hair back, huh? Sound good?”

“Can you – little balls, like Yaz’s?”

His heart fell into his intestine at those words. In his personal opinion, he was doing pretty well at doing long hair, especially considering how lost he was at first. But looking down at her hair he wasn’t sure if he could do it like Najiya Khan could. Yaz’s hair was so much thicker than Jemma’s, and he wasn’t sure if this could work.

Not letting her see his face he made some small talk about all the kids in her class and how they would be so excited to see her soon, while running his fingers through her soft, but thin hair. Even just in practical terms he wasn’t sure if he could put her hair in two little buns, let alone while leaving half of it flowing down her shoulders.

That was the other thing; Jemma’s hair barely reached to the bottom of her neck. It made ponytails and plaits hard enough. But she also had wires attached to her chest, and drips going into her arm and a blood pressure cuff that she swore was trying to cut her arm off every fifteen minutes.

“How about – if – if I put it all up. Into the little balls, I mean. That way its like Yaz’s but its also, y’know, like Jemma. You normally like it up or down. No in-betweens.”

Again, she paused. Taking time to consider the question as though it was a life-or-death situation. It was funny how stuck she could become over small decisions if they weren’t urgent.

“Okay.”

Now he had to figure out how the hell to get this kids hair to look even slightly like her friends by the end of the film. As Jemma shuffled upwards in her bed so she was sat in front of him, he pulled out a hair brush, some bands and wished that his mother was here to guide him. Or Yaz’s for that matter.

“Mrs O’Brian? Please come in.” a stern looking man said, poking his head out of his office door to where she stood having been directed by a frazzled receptionist. The man’s frown looked like it should be permanent and stood out from the brightly coloured displays lining the corridor.

Tommy sat glaring at his hand, keeping his cheek held between the two layers of his teeth to stop himself from saying something wrong. Again.

Even as Miriam sat next to him with a gentle hand on his shoulder he refused to look up, instead choosing to straighten his second hand jumper. It was only when Mr Chandra said his name for the second time that he was able to join the conversation, even if it was only with his eyes.

“Thomas, well – we understand that this is a hard, it’s a difficult situation. But, well, it still doesn’t justify what you were up to today. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Tommy,” the boy muttered through a frown. 

“What was that?”

“My names Tommy. Not Thomas. Its not even Thomas on the register. You’re all – “

“I’m sorry, Tommy. That was my fault for not reading it properly.”

And he bit the inside of his cheek again. Letting the adults carry on talking as he heard words thrown around about ‘fresh starts’ and ‘inappropriate behaviour’ and how this kind of attitude would only lead to increasingly bad decisions. Like they understood anything at all. If he hadn’t have known that it would make it worse he would have told them all how stupid they were being.

Sometimes he just got angry. And then, even when he tried to ignore it, like how teachers always said too, it just got bigger until it felt like that was all he was.

That Rhys kid who he’d met in the playground who had seemed like an okay kind of person; even he laughed at Harold’s jokes. The jokes that made fun of how Martha’s parents were splitting up or how Adelaide was never going to be a spaceman like she wanted. Part of moving schools a lot meant that you had to pick up on who was who quickly.

Which meant that Rhys telling him how horrible Harold was at the start of the day was all a big cover up hiding that they were still friends really. That their rivalry was just some kind of childish game and that he wouldn’t care if anyone got hurt.

The stupid teacher hadn’t cared about Harold’s jokes, just told him to please quiet down. But when he got tired of it and couldn’t stop thinking about how the kid on the other side of the class would probably make fun of Jemma’s scar if he ever saw it and snapped, that was wrong.

It wasn’t like he hit him or anything like that.

If he had hit him, then he wouldn’t have a problem with being here. Nobody likes being hit, and he was firmly of the opinion that nobody deserved to be hit. Not even Harold with his nasty jokes and bad hair.

When Mr Chandra asked him if there was anything he wanted to say, he noticed just how dark the shadows under the mans eyes looked. It was only the first day back after all, and they’d said in assembly this morning that he was new, like him. And there was already a new kid making trouble in one of his classes. In fact, there were probably kids being horrible in loads of classes, as well as parents who had forgotten the stuff everyone was meant to have in their bags over the holidays.

So, he said he was sorry and that he wouldn’t do it again.

Walking out the small office he barely noticed his head-of-year’s tired smile at his words. Instead, he tried to focus on the feel of his sort of grandma’s hand on his shoulder and not the sharp taste of blood in the corner of his mouth.


	19. Chapter 19

Miriam slammed the door of the car with what is probably an unreasonable level of force. But the combined sound of children bickering and the second chorus of Beat It playing for the thousandth time this week was already driving her insane.

With the thirty seconds worth of hindsight, she now had she could tell that putting Oscar between Yasmin and Ryan had been a bad idea. The back seat of the car was small enough that even though there were technically three different seat belts the trio were still almost sat on top of each other. It hadn’t been long but both Oscar and Yasmin had already pointed this out. With passion.

She had known that the three weren’t exactly close friends, but hadn’t wanted her son’s youngest neighbour to feel shunned. 

If she had sat Jemma’s best friends next too each other there was little to no way that they wouldn’t have their heads together the entire journey. And if there was one thing that she refused to accept it was somebody being left out.

Part of her wished that he had never spotted the group of them loading up into the car. After all, if he hadn’t asked if he could come too and told her how he missed walking to school with Jemma with those big sad eyes, she wouldn’t have needed to invite him. Even as she had done it, she had known, deep down, how badly it would end.

The younger kids had gone from that slightly stilted way children in the company of adults speak to an angry silence.

She couldn’t decide whether the silence was better than the noise. At least they were talking.

Either way, she was stuck here; turning onto the A61 listening to bickering that bordered on fighting and trying not scream when Tommy took one hand away from where it was clutching onto a tin of banana bread muffins to start the song again.

From where she was sitting up in bed Jemma rattled off her five times table. It had been their challenge for today, well, the challenge other than moving from the high dependency unit where she’d had to have twelve little wires attached to her to keep an eye on her heart, to the ward where there were only three.

The ward itself was strange: somehow both louder and quieter than the ward.

There were more kids and parents making noise by chatting and watching TV, but there weren’t as many machines beeping all the time. When either of them closed their eyes they could still a faint beeping that didn’t exist.

Apparently, if it wasn’t a Saturday, they would have made her do what they called hospital school. A person would have come and see her, because she wasn’t allowed to leave the ward yet. Jamie from the other side of the room said they mostly just did things like painting and stories. Which was good, because Jemma liked both painting and stories. Particularly stories. Painting was alright, but she preferred gymnastics.

Next to her Graham chimed in with the next in the sequence when she didn’t manage to stop her face from curling into frustration. The sevens were always the hardest to remember.

Smiling slightly with the kind of twinkle in her eye that would make most experienced adults worry about what she wanted she shuffled on the bed until she was facing Graham. Already, she had learnt that twisting to try and see anything would only lead the alarms beeping because one of the wires had fallen off again.

“Graham,” she said, trying and failing to sound casual. “Did you hear Miss Nancy say there was a playroom?”

“I did in fact hear Nancy say there was a playroom. Why do you ask?”

With the sweet underdeveloped ability to pick up on social norms typical for your average reception aged child, she didn’t notice the twitch on Graham’s face. If she had she would have been offended because it meant that he was surprised it had taken her this long to ask.

“Jamie’s mum says there’s loads of toys there.”

“Makes sense for a playroom.”

“Can I see the toys Graham?”

Graham glanced in a state of brief panic at the machines she was attached to. There wasn’t a nurse around who he could ask to help him out, to ask them if she would be able to move out into the corridor and if so, how the hell to rearrange everything.

There were wires that they said were making sure her heart was working properly; Jemma would tell him sometimes that they didn’t want her heart to break so he had to give her whatever biscuits she wanted. And there were also tubes giving her different medicines straight into the veins in her arm, but at least they weren’t giving her blood all the time like they did for the first hour or so.

He darted out to see if there was anyone stood by the nurses station that he felt confident was similar to the one he had both provided snacks for and stolen snacks from over on the higher dependency unit. If nothing else it had the same battered swivel chairs.

What the previous unit’s desk area didn’t have was a small crowd of children arguing with a frazzled looking young nurse who was explaining that the policy went against both large groups of visitors at the same time and unexpected visitors who weren’t family. For a brief second, he wondered if they had an adult with them, the oldest one of them couldn’t have been older than Tommy. Judging that this poor woman was probably far too busy to deal with him as well he turned to head down the corridor and find someone else, preferably before Jemma removed all her wires to go to this famed playroom.

Naturally, he smacked directly into another person. Going forwards he would argue that she had in fact smacked into him, or rather the top of her head had permanently dented his chin.

But who crashed into who doesn’t really matter considering that neither person had been holding anything that could spill or stain. What mattered far more to the pair of them was that it caused Graham to immediately re-evaluate his life choices that had led to this moment.

Because his mother was drawing herself up to her not quite five-foot four height with breathing reminiscent of a dragon and he was reminded painfully of how she had prepared for battle before each and every one of his parent’s evenings throughout school. Not that he didn’t appreciate how she had stood up for him but being on the other end was slightly terrifying.

“Erm, I’m so sorry… can’t believe I just…“

“Graham O’Brian, can you please tell this woman that we are Jemma’s family.”

“Oscar’s not,” Ryan piped up with a grin directed to and returned by Tommy, who’s recently buzzed head was being covered, badly, by the younger boy’s favourite yellow hat.

Miriam turned to the group of children and lowered her eyes to stare disappointedly at them. It was done in the only way that anyone who had been dealing with four under tens for the last few hours could, half heartedly and not expecting any real reaction.

“Ryan,” Graham started, having to force his smile deep into his throat. “Don’t be mean to Oscar. Tommy, don’t encourage him.”

“Sorry Jemma’s dad.”

“Yeah, sorry Graham.”

Even though he didn’t believe either of them for a second he nodded, noting in his head how Ryan watched Tommy as though the older boy was the coolest person in the world. In turn, Tommy was leaning his elbow on Ryan’s head like an annoying older cousin.

“I’ve got banana bread Mr O’Brian,” Yaz said, holding the foil covered tin up for a closer examination. “Tommy said I could hold it.”

Still standing next to the desk, the boy in question shrugged as though he didn’t have a care in the world. He always had had a knack for that; seeming confidently smug, it made finding out his real emotions that much harder. In an attempt to get some more information out of him, Graham raised his eyebrows to ask him a question. Because it was Tommy, he just shrugged again with a growing smirk on his face.

“Banana’s are good, Graham. You know that.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with that. Not after that time the then-seven-year-old had read out the entire section of a book about tropical fruits they’d found in a library because he liked the way the word potassium sounded. Since then, he’d suggest bananas for almost every meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short filler chapter for anyone who wants it
> 
> happy new year!!! 2020 is gone!!


	20. Chapter 20

They’d told him firmly that six people by a patient’s bedside was so strictly against hospital policy it was pointless to try arguing. In response Yaz had argued that Oscar didn’t count as a person before being hushed by Tommy and elbowed by a laughing Oscar.

Trying hard to be the bigger person, Graham had simply asked what he had originally come to ask. If Jemma would be able to go to the playroom like she wanted. To which the young woman had said yes without even glancing towards the bay she was in to check, in fact, he was about to become very concerned on his – Jemma’s – behalf when she asked if he’d need a hand taking her through.

“Can these lovely people also go to the playroom,” he asked with what he hoped was a charming smile. “The playrooms not the bedside, right?”

“Sure. If they can fit.”

Before heading back to the hospital bay, he spun around and pointed the small gang towards where he was fairly sure the playroom was. It was the kind of place he was certain he had seen at some stage but he honestly wasn’t sure when or where. For all he knew it slipped in and out of existence like a magician’s rabbit.

Then he turned back and headed back to where the little girl with her hair stuck in messy plaits, because they’d agreed that one day with the horrifying display of his own difficulties in doing hair was enough, was.

He was glad he had decided to follow pretty sharpish because when he went in to see how they were doing it didn’t look good. The way the nurse seemed to be almost weaving the different wires to make sure Jemma wouldn’t immediately get stuck in the wires would have made him laugh if it wasn’t for the look on the girl in question’s face.

Her face was scrunched up even as her body was completely still. It was a face he knew well from back in their first week together. To be specific it was the one she would have when she was trying to stop herself from flinching away from something; a clear sign that she didn’t trust the person near her.

“Hey there kid,” he said, breaking the quiet.

Even though she didn’t reply, she did look up – which Graham counted as a win. Just by looking at her he could tell that she was gritting her teeth enough that she would probably get a headache later. To be fair to the nurse, it had taken him quite a long time to learn to recognise that particular look and that it meant she wanted minimal touching or close contact. When the nurse glanced down to check if Jemma was doing okay, she copied the nurse’s gentle smile.

But he wasn’t fooled in the same way. From experience, he knew that she could be as charming as was needed to win over both kids and teachers at school. It would serve her well in life, but also meant that she didn’t always get the same concern that she sometimes needed.

Something that wasn’t a problem with any of his longer stay children. Getting various adults to believe that they needed help not punishment for things could be an issue, but people always paid attention when Josh started hitting himself with things or when Alexander would throw pens at where he hoped the wall might be. 

A child being well behaved and smiley wasn’t something people often thought to consider, even when they knew her background.

“Hang on a sec,” Graham said to the nurse while trying to read her nametag. “Did you know that me and my friend Vanessa here are taking you to the playroom?”

Still as motionless as a nervous snail, she shook her head. Trying to force down the anger that he felt about this new situation, he chuckled before giving his gestured for Vanessa away so he could have a go. He hoped that she hadn’t taken anymore offense than was necessary. 

“Looks like she’s almost got you untangled there.”

Although he did move closer, he waited for Jemma to acknowledge his statement with a one shouldered shrug, before he reached out his hands to start looping the wires away from each other. It felt like trying to deal with a long stream of fairy lights except that they were surrounding a child and he wasn’t sure which ones were most important to stay on. The ones attached to the drug infusions were already untwisted. He only knew they were because they hadn’t beeped at him for touching a wire yet.

Some of them were gone since the last time he had been in here approximately four minutes ago. There weren’t any wires stuck onto her chest anymore, even if he could see the edge of one of the stickers under her t-shirt, signalling that this was only temporary.

“I reckon you’re almost done here. Don’t want you wrapped up like a mummy, huh?”

“What’s a mummy?” Jemma whispered with frightened eyes.

Perhaps not the best joke to make, now he thought about it. The cover of Josh’s book about ancient Egypt flashed through his mind in all its shiny glory and he asked himself how he could describe a mummy well enough to satisfy her without scaring her.

“Well,” he started, keeping his voice level. “Ages ago they used to – when people died, they’d wrap them all up in bandages. Head to toe.”

Jemma’s green eyes darted upwards as her shoulders relaxed. It was good to know that this method was working, that she was calming down now she knew what was happening again. 

“I don’t know why. Just what they did, like how we have funerals.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Exactly, so we don’t need to wrap you like a mummy in these wires.”

When she nodded and moved herself so she was ready to stand up he let out a deep sigh, calm in the knowledge that the fear was, at least partly, gone. The fear that he had somehow pulled out an essential wire that would mean this kid would die a slow and painful death was still there, it always seemed to be there at the moment.

Watching Jemma shuffle through the doorway into the playroom with her hand firmly clasped on the pole with her drips attached was heart breaking. He wasn’t sure if she was holding onto it to stop it pulling on the wires, he had offered to drag it along instead, or so she had something to balance with.

The sound of noisy chatter had quietened as they had become visible to those inside. After all three of them were only little and even he had been freaked out the first time he had seen Jemma after her surgery. She seemed so much more delicate.

“You get to wear your jim-jams every day?” Yaz asked to break the silence.

“That’s so cool,” Oscar said, presumably in response to a nod from Jemma.

“They’ve got stars on them, look,” Jemma said, trying to point at one on her arm. He took a step forward and held onto the stand for her, it might have balanced alright in the bedside, but she hadn’t been moving as much then.

“Hey, Jems,” Tommy said from where he was crouched in the corner with Ryan. They looked like they were trying to work something else, with Ryan still serving as a shadow to the older boy. “Want to see some more stars?”

At Jemma’s still quiet nod Ryan pushed a yellow button on the wall. A sea of pinprick lights shone out from what he had assumed was a speaker near the ceiling, giving a decent impression of stars covering the room. Even the cheap plastic toy buckets took on a new level of beauty as the lights filled the room with a gentle purple glow.

“Mum used to say the stars tell stories,” Jemma said, her eyes still fixed on the ceiling above her.

Jemma didn’t talk much about her mother, for understandable reasons. When she did it was normally to insist that she had done something wrong and was said with fear filling her skull until it leaked out of her mouth and eyes. How she’d taken her daughters blood everyday to ‘test’ it and pinched her when she was a baby in the doctor’s surgery to make her cry and seem sicker than she was. How even just asking to go outside could lead to punishment on some days, which was, in a way, worse than if it had been every day.

At least that way there would have been consistency for her to try and work with. Apparently on other days she had been punished for not being enthusiastic enough to go outside. Either way, this was the first time that she had mentioned her mother in any kind of positive light.

“Used to say I came from the stars. A special little problem for her to solve.”

Before Graham had time to try and work out what that meant his mother jumped right into the conversation. Although the kids were all mesmerised by the lights up above, she, like him, was just gazing as their open expression with fondness that couldn’t be hidden.

“What story do these ones say?”

“Pirates,” Yaz said with the confidence of somebody who succeeded in convincing their dad to let them watch Pirates of the Carribean and now had promptly made a sword out of a wrapping paper tube left over from Sonya’s birthday.

“Yeah,” Jemma said. “Except for that one of the pirates is also a lizard who’s pretending not to be a lizard. And the lizard farts a lot.”

“The lizard doesn’t like vinegar but they’re catching fish so people can go to the chippy and get fish so he has to pretend to like vinegar.” Ryan added.

“Or they’ll know,” Jemma and Ryan both nodded.

“I don’t like vinegar.”

“Ryan, I think Oscar’s the lizard,” Tommy said in a dry way that caused both the adults to choke down their laughter.

“I like fish and chips. I don’t like vinegar but I’m not a lizard.”

“Oscar’s definitely a lizard,” Yaz said with a grin even as she carried on staring at the ceiling.

“I like a sausage at the chippys,” Ryan said to almost overwhelming agreement as the group made their way over to the padded area in the corner with Graham following along after a step because Jemma had clearly forgotten about the wires.

It was sweet to see how they helped each other out so they didn’t slip on the soft plastic covers. Without making a big deal about it Tommy managed to get Jemma sitting so she was propped up against the wall. Unlike many other days he had seen, even as they were teasing him, they made sure to bring Oscar into the little circle. Yaz pulled over one of the buckets of toys so they could all play together without having to get up.

“For some reason I expected some meaningful story,” his mum said in a whisper next to him as they pulled up the little kiddie chairs to sit on.

“C’mon, they’re five,” he responded with a chuckle. “Nice distraction though. Don’t know if I want to know what she meant.”

“She called her a problem is what I heard. Don’t really care if it was special. Doesn’t mean you get to treat your kid like that, not to solve something that’s not wrong.”

“What did you hear.”

“Not much… other than what was in the news. But I can guess she wasn’t great.”

“Not really.”

“Hey,” Miriam called over to the kids who had now decided that Oscar wasn’t a lizard he was some kind of were-cat, which Oscar seemed far more offended by. “Stop that. Find something new to talk about.”

“I’m impressed you didn’t kill them on the way here, the way they’re bickering.”

“Trust me it got close.”

The banana bread stood, mostly forgotten on the cabinet next to the, also mostly forgotten, drip stand. Just another part of the scenery.

It was strange how normal a hospital could become so quickly. A few days ago he knew that the first thing he would have registered when he entered this room would have been the red emergency bell attached to the wall above his head. Now it was the circular mirror in the middle of the soft part of the room that the kids were staring into at the moment.

With a laugh Tommy pushed another button. Having given no warning there were gasps of overjoyed surprise at the multicoloured lights inside the mirror that seemed to stretch into enternity before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that its been a long time. combination of mental health and assignments have been... alot
> 
> either way. i love the sensory parts of hospital playrooms and i DONT love tecteun


	21. Chapter 21

Miriam whistled lowly through her teeth as the adults tried and failed to get the attention of all the children at once. The group had been sat playing with increasingly odd toys for hours now and it was reaching the stage of the day where they would be getting hungry. Not that any of them had noticed that yet, but it would be easier if they weren’t starving when they had to leave.

The only interruption to the groups conversations had been a nurse coming through periodically to check Jemma’s vital signs and sort out a problem with her fluid’s pump’s pressure. Yaz had seemed almost afraid of the people coming in and doing all these unfamiliar things to her friend but Jemma had used the opportunity to show off all the things she knew.

Even though she had almost certainly had more important things to do, the nurse had stayed with them for a bit after the first time to answer excited questions from the three newcomers. 

Everything from ‘why are there lights here’ (it makes it feel relaxing and its nice to look at) to ‘whats that on Jemma’s finger’ (a special machine measuring how fast her hearts going). Oscar had even asked why all the nurses seemed to wear different coloured unforms – a question that he had been dying to ask but always felt a bit too awkward to. 

On the way out she had even reassured both the adults that they wouldn’t be disturbed unless it was needed. They’d put a paper sign on the door saying private, so that nobody else would come in and Jemma could spend time with her friends and family.

“Mrs Graham’s-Mum why’s the bear do this?” Ryan asked, lifting the fabric covering the cuddly bear’s belly in confusion.

“Sorry, love but I have no idea.”

Some of the toys in those buckets had been interesting to say the least, but having a teddy with two layers of belly fabric was strange enough that it broke the trance the room seemed to have on the kids. Now she thought about it they probably should have started the goodbye process by turning off the star lights twinkling on the walls.

“Okay then, all Reception age children, its time to leave,” Graham said with a pat to his thighs. He grimaced when he noticed Jemma’s head fly upward in excitement. 

“Sorry, Jems. I meant your friends. Should have said it better.”

“S’okay.”

“S’not okay,” Yaz cried from where she was sat cross legged on the padded floor and reached out to grab Jemma in some form of solitude. It was a sweet gesture even if she miscalculated the distance and ended up clutching at air instead.

The younger boys agreed with the same tone of aggressive friendship, leaving Tommy laughing under his breath and Jemma staring blankly in confusion. As if she wasn’t able to understand that they wanted to stay with her. And that this trip to see her hadn’t just been a fun way to spend the day in a different place but a visit specifically to see her.

She lifted her head up to glance at Graham as though trying for reassurance. But he had no idea what to say; if he should make light of the trip and calm her down now, or confirm how much she meant to these kids and help in the long run. 

“Hey,” Miriam butted into his thoughts and the continued protests of the kids. “I told all your parents that I’d get you home before bed. That is a lot of people to be mad at me so we’ve got to be off.”

Graham noticed Tommy grabbing each of the other kids pairs of shoes and smiled before going over to lay a hand on his shoulder. Crouching down to help with the task at hand he quietly started speaking to the boy, trying to make the conversation seem boring to the other kids nearby.

“We thought you could stay the night if you want? In Liverpool. Not the hospital.”

Tommy raised his eyes from Yaz’s shiny black school shoes that she had insisted on wearing because they had the small, indented outline of a butterfly on them. His eyes filled with a combination of confusion and hope that was painful to watch. In an attempt not to let Tommy see how that same combination of emotions had been almost cemented in his own heart since Alexander had first arrived at his house all those years ago, he smiled.

“You could spend some tie with your – with Jemma.”

“What about the littleuns though?”

“My mum said she’d take them back. And she’s booked us a room in a B&B across the way. If you want, you don’t have to.”

“Nah, I wanna stay here,” he said. But the thoughtful pause he gave told Graham that there was more that he wanted to say. With a firm crease in his forehead and a whisper in his voice, he asked: “What about Grandma?”

“She’ll be okay for just one night. Then you’ll see her again. Besides,” Graham said, realising that there was something that he still desperately needed to say. “Its our job to worry about you. Not the other way around.”

The huff of disgruntled laughter he got in return was worth the quiet conversation. When he turned he saw that the rest of the room was not in as calm a state as the pair of them were. In particular, he noticed Jemma very determinedly trying to help Ryan with his shoes. He also noticed how despite the laser focus on Jemma’s face she was still trying to force Ryan’s left foot into the right shoe as he tried his best not to laugh.

Sensing that Jemma’s focus was just on the verge of turning into the frustration that would either lead to anger or tears, or both, he stepped forward. As he had been sitting on his heels for his conversation with Tommy, he simply waddled over, grabbing for Ryan’s left shoe and misjudging slightly. 

His rapidly circling arms signified to the group that he was about to fall as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other in a vain attempt to maintain both his balance and his dignity. A soft thud echoed around the room as he lost his battle with gravity.

It was nothing compared to the thud that was bouncing around Graham’s head, even if nobody else had heard it. One of his spinning arms had come into contact with one of the kids in their uncoordinated, but still fast, manner. With most of his face he joined in with the laughter that his mother had started when it had become clear that he wasn’t in fact injured in any way.

The other part of his face glanced up at whoever it was standing behind him. Oscar Masterson was rubbing his elbow, his standard frown still plastered onto his face like wallpaper chosen in the seventies that has since gone out of date. He didn't look like he had been hurt but Graham was still questioning just how he was going to react. If he started complaining, or even crying, Graham wouldn't blame him in the slightest.

Perhaps because of the good influence of the other kids, or the serious influence of the hospital or just because of choosing battles, but Oscar simply lifted a shoulder to say that it didn’t matter. 

He also raised his eyebrows. But Graham was pretty sure that he had meant to raise both.

Still, Graham made a point to make eye contact with him and mouth a silent apology. Not that he had a problem with apologising to the kid verbally, but he figured that, as he had stayed quiet, he should just follow Oscar’s lead. A thought he would never have expected to have about any of his irritating neighbours. Adults included.

Behind their silent exchange, Miriam came over with Oscars bright coat that was covered in purple dinosaurs. Graham was pretty sure that it used to be Melissa’s but the way Oscar would happily run his fingers over the small prehistoric patterns on the splash proof material showed that it was the perfect hand-me-down. Green pen stains not withstanding of course.

Trying not to make a fuss, he slipped Ryan’s feet into their shoes. His head was filled with questions about coordination and self reliance as though the boy was far more helpless than he was. Although he kept his head still, he shook his brain a little to try and stop.

After all, Ryan’s nan had never once looked at Jemma differently when she needed a second to catch her breath after running out to meet them at the school gates. 

Even when it started happening more frequently as the term went on or when she had had to lean against Graham's legs for a few seconds to catch her breath a couple of times when they had all gone ice skating together. Something that felt like it had happened a lifetime ago. For Ryan’s sake he took Grace’s example to heart. Just because he struggled putting the shoes on didn’t mean that he was helpless. It wasn't something he could say that Ryan 'just needed help with.' He had no idea what was going on.

For all he knew they were just a bit small for him. There could be all kinds of explanations for it and he had to accept that it wasn’t his business anyway.

“While I’m here, crouched down like a penguin, you want me to do them up?”

“I’m good,” was the response, as he had expected.

If there was one thing that this entire group of small children had in common it was their shared stubbornness. There was a little bit of him that wished he had just done them up so they could leave already as he watched him struggle to line up the Velcro so it would hold. Then he reminded himself that it would probably be better for him to leave Ryan to it.

That didn’t stop him from having to distract Oscar from going over to help in a kind hearted gesture that would almost certainly go wrong somehow. It wasn’t hard; he just asked if the dinosaurs have name and held back his laughter when he was informed that of course they don’t have names, they have titles. One was called teacher, one was called queen and the one over his heart was called the doctor.

“-Because the doctor’s why Jemma’s hearts gonna be okay, right?”

And now his own heart felt like it was going to explode, a little. With how much, and how agressively, they bickered it was easy to forget that Oscar and Jemma had been friends since before she had even met Ryan or Yaz. Way before she had met Tommy. Oscar could pretend to hate her in an attempt to mimick his older brother but that didn't stop him from caring with all his fully-functioning heart when it mattered. Glancing behind him he saw that Ryan had moved onto the second shoe, with the first looking secure and his tongue sticking out of his mouth in a subconscious display of his hard work.

Jemma had finished her goodbyes and was now excitedly telling Tommy about all the different kinds of food you could have for tea in hospital. The fact that only she got food and so Tommy would likely be having something else, was irrelevant. As observant as ever, Tommy joined right into the conversation with considerably more questions than normal.

After all, her friends were about to leave again and go home. While she stayed here.

So, he was on distraction mode. Similar to what Graham himself would have been doing, if he wasn’t brainstorming ways of ending his conversation with Oscar without being rude. It was the most postive conversation he'd had with the little boy for a long time but still, there were only so many strangely named dinosaurs he could have pointed out to him. He was just grateful that he didn’t have to hurry Oscar to put on his coat or shoes and that Miriam was already helping with Yaz.

Which just left Ryan. With a soft feeling of guilt in his stomach he glanced over at the dark coat still draped over a cabinet and reminded himself to let him put on his shoes in his own time. That didn’t stop him from wondering how to let the kid know he could ask for help if he wanted it.

Which obviously lead to him feeling terrible about thinking that. It wasn’t as though Ryan appeared particularly distressed at the moment, but then again, he didn’t want him to try and hide any struggles because he felt he wouldn’t have support.

“Come on Oscar. You’ve said goodbye.” Miriam said, butting into his internal monologue, as she helped Yaz with her coat’s zipper.

“Yeah, cmon Oz,” Yaz laughed.

“Ryan’s taking ages too,” the only recently nicknamed Ozzie grumbled good naturedly, even as he waited for Ryan to finish doing up the Velcro on his shoes with a mature level of patience.

“Least I don’t call my dinosaur’s ‘policeman,’” Jemma chirped from her lofty position sat on top of the tallest shelving unit.

"S'called officer."

Tommy had loudly informed Graham that their post-dinner board game was going to be a strictly kids only affair and banished him from the room. Something that had drawn laughter from the various other adults also present. With a grimace he had ammended the rule so that nurses could stay but still not parents, but had refused to budge any further. So, the parents had truddled out and there was a swarm of children trying to find the cardboard cheese pieces needed to play Mouse Trap according to the rules on the side.

The bay hadn't been too crowded or, even with his ability to charm, Tommy wouldn't have convinced them to do this. One of the parents had taken their little girl out to get pizza in the overpriced hospital canteen as well, which took the numbers down again. Another parent was using the time to make a phone call out in the main part of the hospital without having to worry about if her child was happy.

So, it was just two of the parents left. The nurse in charge had convinced them that they could step away into the parents little kitchenette to make themselves hot drinks and even given them special permission to bring said drinks to the nurses station where they could watch the group of kids through the window. For all that she was strict about bedtimes, she was very compassionate and understood that they weren't being helicopter parents because that was who they were.

Both of their kids had serious conditions. Unlike the little girl enjoying her pizza, they had been here for more than one night and had developed the ability to worry constantly. Neither parent would admit it under torture, but both were worried that their child would deteriorate if they weren't watching.

Of course Graham know that wasn't logical.

“How’s he doing?” Graham asked Nancy who was blowing the steam off a cup of coffee and watching as her little Jamie laughed at Jemma and Tommy’s antics trying to set up the game of Mouse Trap.

Even though he tried his best not to judge, he always felt a bit sorry for the young woman. Not only was she young with no dad in the picture, but her little boy had been hit by a car and had been hooked up to various machines for months now. Apparently, his favourite had been the massive CPAP one that covered his entire face, simply because it was the first time he’d been awake enough to remember his mum stroking his hair, even if at the time he hadn't been able to remember who his mum was. Tommy had just joked that the kid looked like he was wearing an old gas mask when he was shown a picture.

As one of the only people who hadn't reacted with either horror or distinterest when this subject was brought up, Jamie had immediately become very invested in making sure that Tommy liked him. Which was funny to watch if nothing else. But Tommy had always been a good storyteller, so he had started explaining just what a gas mask was and how he had tried one on at school once. With a natural understanding of his young audience, he had emphasised how smelly the mask had been.

With gestures.

Little tow-haired Jamie had had to be resuscitated multiple times and might have been declared dead if it wasn’t for the dedication of Doctor Constantine, who would visit the ward regularly on his breaks with presents for both Jamie and Nancy. 

“They reckon he’s just gonna have that scar on his hand,” Nancy said after a few seconds. “It doesn’t seem real that…”

He nodded in understanding. After so many setbacks and serious conversations about how badly this might affect his life, leaving was going to be terrifying. Just thinking about taking Jemma home filled his heart with joy and his stomach with dread. And he hadn’t been here as long as they had.

“At least it’s a cool scar,” he said, grinning when she let out a laugh.

“Coolest kid on the playground,” she responded before her face went white. “Oh god, Graham , he’s gonna go to school.”

“He’s gonna be great.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always thank you so much for reading this chapter. love having you here xx


End file.
